A grandmother cares for her grandson ill with AIDS. He died
shortly after this photo was taken. (Photo: David Jones)
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Mother and Child.
(Photo: Ellen Schell) |
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SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May3,
2005--Mother's Day is taking on a new meaning this year in the
Sub-Saharan African country of Malawi, where some 125 village
women are "mothering" and healing their communities
through a unique grassroots program making a difference in the
struggle against HIV/AIDS.
The Malawi Women's Empowerment Project, made possible by a $1
million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, provides
home-based care for the sick and orphaned in 37 villages and educates
villagers about HIV/AIDS and the importance of being tested. The
women employed by the project go from dwelling to dwelling, delivering
care, counseling those with HIV/AIDS, and monitoring the distribution
of clothing, food, and medicine to orphans. In Sub-Saharan Africa,
the same number of people die each month from AIDS as perished
in the recent tsunami disaster.
The Empowerment Project, administered by the Global Aids Interfaith
Alliance (GAIA), is unique in its grassroots approach. GAIA, based
in San Francisco, works with religious leaders to develop locally
initiated and managed programs to provide HIV prevention and care.
GAIA gains access to the villages through Christian, Muslim, and
African Traditional religious organizations, and partners with
the religious leaders and village chiefs to determine a plan of
action.
The women who participate in the project are paid a stipend of
$10 per week -- twice the average Malawi weekly income. They are
trained as caregivers and are empowered socially and economically,
a status that has allowed them to rebuild a community structure
decimated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.Now in its third and final
year, the program supports six female coordinators and 125 caretakers
serving 37 villages. |
Since the program began, thousands
suffering from HIV/AIDS in rural Malawi villages have received
aid and counseling and have learned prevention strategies.
"There is much power in the way we work," said the
Very Rev. William Rankin, President of GAIA. "It is not us
coming in and telling the people what to do. They build their
own solutions."
Empowerment of Women
The 2002 Global AIDS Conference in Barcelona confirmed that
a key to slowing down the spread of AIDS in poor countries is
the empowerment of women. Lacking social and economic power, many
Africa women are forced to rely on men to survive. Chronic food
shortages and crop failures in a subsistence economy drive women
to exchange sex for food and cash in order to feed their families
and pay school fees for children. Women participating in the Empowerment
program, however, use their stipends to purchase these goods and
services. Their economic power and community status earn the respect
of their husbands and relatives.
"This is a significant change," said Rankin, "since
a chief HIV risk factor for a woman in Malawi is marriage. When
power visibly shifts within the family, a woman's ability to negotiate
sex increases rapidly. She can ask her husband to use a condom,
and encourage him to test for HIV. The rate of STDs among women
begins to drop. It is a new day in the dwelling, and therefore
the village."
The caregivers report that their husbands now help in the home,
including caring for the children and preparing meals. All agree,
"Our husbands are proud of our work."
Care for Orphans
In addition to providing home based care and counseling, the
women oversee the care of the thousands of village orphans. Approximately
20% of children in the villages served by the project are orphans;
most often they are cared for by another female figure in their
lives: a grandmother, aunt, or older sister.
"We try very hard to keep orphans in school because
otherwise
they may be exploited as child laborers or by means of sexual
predation. School teachers are dying at a high rate and this
has affected teacher-students ratios in Malawi, which are
now
1:100 to 1:200. The children are packed into the school rooms
on the dirt floors shoulder to shoulder. That matters because
when you look at how girls are doing compared to boys, they
are doing progressively poorer. The teachers think the girls
are stupid, as do the parents, the caretakers, and worst of
all, the girls think the girls are stupid. The problem really
is that when called upon, the students are asked to stand
up
to answer. The little girls will not stand up when they are
packed shoulder to shoulder because they do not have
undergarments. So we buy them undergarments." -Bill Rankin |
A priority for the women was to register all the village orphans
and to monitor the distribution of clothing, food, and medicine,
as well as the children's educational progress. (Many orphans
do not attend school due to shame that their clothing is in tatters
and often no one is able to pay school fees). The Empowerment
project pays schools fees, buys schools uniforms, and provides
food for the children.
"Now we have clubs and we learn HIV prevention," said
a 12-year-old orphan from the village of Chinamwali. "We
have clothes, soap, blankets, and things to write with. We go
to schools. Before, only a few orphans went to school. Now almost
all do."
Reduction of AIDS Stigma
A primary reason HIV spreads so rapidly though impoverished countries
is that the people who are infected don't know it. Through the
counseling of the women, the stigma of HIV/AIDS has been reduced,
and those dying of AIDS are much less likely to suffer alone.
Families are now more willing to admit that a family member is
ill with HIV/AIDS, and the number of home-based care patients
has grown from about 100 to over three hundred.
Through their efforts to demystify HIV, the women have greatly
increased the number of people being tested and simultaneously
decreased the shame that surrounds the disease. More than 3000
people in the area served by the project went for testing in 2004
alone.
A Shift in the Role of Women
A recent study from the United Nations reports that for many
in Malawi, the immediate threat of hunger often outweighs the
perceived danger of HIV, and so many women are driven to transactional
sex in order to survive.
To combat such practice, the Empowerment Program has helped many
women begin income-generating activities such as growing exotic
mushrooms, baking and selling bread, setting up vegetable stands,
and breeding goats.
Like all recent years, a significant proportion of children in
Malawi will be without their birth mothers this Mothers Day. This
year, however, in the villages served by this project the children
will be clothed, fed, and educated thanks to a group of extraordinary
women who have begun to re-stitch together one of the most essential
prerequisites for human flourishing: human community.
About GAIA
The Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance, a non-profit organization
based in San Francisco, was founded in 2000 in response to the
global HIV/AIDS catastrophe. Driven by the desire to stop this
devastating disease, William Rankin, GAIA's president and chief
executive officer, and Charles Wilson, GAIA's board chair and
Professor of Neurosurgery, Emeritus, UCSF, focused on using the
religious networks in Africa to prevent the spread of the disease
in developing countries. GAIA currently works in the African country
of Malawi to support village initiatives preventing the spread
of AIDS through education, empowerment to women and families,
voluntary testing, clothing, food, school supplies, and care to
those sick and dying from the disease. In addition to the Gates
Foundation, the organization is supported by more than 30 U.S.
congregations and many individual donors. For more information
or to learn how you can help, please visit www.thegaia.org. |
