Global AIDS - Malawi
Meet some of the AIDS orphans of Ndirande we’re helping
“Our man in Malawi” is the AFP correspondent, Felix
Mponda. Photographed here with Zez Thambo, he kindly acted as
our intermediary, arranging for a cheque handover and arranging
media coverage and reporting back to us. The project was to bring
fresh water some 600 metres from a nearby mountain to the grounds
of the orphanage itself.
The project launch day, August 4th., was a real red letter day
of celebration .. of song and dance and speeches.
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the launch of the water project
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Five years ago Thambo, 57, along with other members of his community,
opened up a small center in the Ndirande township not far from
the economic capital of Blantyre, where every day they feed 300
children whose parents have died from AIDS.
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some of the orphans who graced the launch ceremony
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About 85,000 people die of AIDS-related illnesses a year in this
southern African country of 11 million.
Among the 300 orphans who come every day to the Tithandize center,
about a dozen have fallen ill but the center cannot afford the
anti-retroviral drugs needed to treat them.
"Our priorities are food and ARVs," says Thambo who
has lived all his life in the township, Malawi's biggest.
Many of Ndirande's AIDS orphans remain in their homes with a
relative following the death of their parents but others find
themselves in the street with nothing.
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Zeka, Ester, Agatha, Maria and George, aged between two and 12,
are among the dozen children who live in a building set up behind
a school at the AIDS orphans center.
The Tithandizde center has a budget of 6,000 kwachas (52 dollars/45
euros) a month, mostly from local donations. It also grows several
hectares of maize which provides the bulk of the children's meals.
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the plumber laying pipes takes a break as a young girl draws water
halfway from the Ndirande Mountain to the centre
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Last year, the center bought a house for 40,000 kwachas (348
dollars/296 euros) to help out more AIDS orphans but Thambo said
he has yet to come up with the funds to renovate it.
Thambo complains bitterly that local politicians fund AIDS centers
with handouts and that the government should have a more structured
approach to allocating support.
Meanwhile, community leaders are trying to stop the ranks of
AIDS orphans from growing by holding information meetings on the
disease, many of which are attended by traditional chiefs to underscore
the importance of the issue.
But in a country where AIDS remains a taboo subject, prevention
and AIDS awareness remain an uphill task, with many notions about
the disease still finding believers.
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a young orphaned girl recites a poem at the launch of the water
project
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drawing water at the source
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"Some think they have been bewitched. Others believe condoms
can be a source of AIDS. Others believe AIDS comes from women who
catch it when to go to hospitals," says Thambo.
AIDS has cut life expectancy to 36 in Malawi, which last week
launched its first programme to provide free antiretroviral drugs,
hoping to reach tens of thousands of HIV sufferers in the next
five years.
President Bakili Muluzi, who is to step down from office this
year after serving two terms, sought to erase the stigma attached
to AIDS by publicly admitting in February that his brother had
died of the disease.
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"The fight against the killer disease could only succeed
if we break (the) barriers of silence, stigma and discrimination,"
he said, adding that he himself had undergone an HIV test, the
result of which had been "good news."
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