About HIV

 

UNAIDS reports that Ethiopia has nearly 5.5 million orphans, with more than 900,000 orphaned by AIDS. In 2013, about 200,000 Ethiopian children between the ages of 0-14 and 590,000 adults were living with HIV. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 1.2 million people with HIV in Ethiopia, including 90,000 HIV-positive pregnant women, an estimated 14,000 HIV-positive births and a total of 28,000 AIDS deaths annually. Though Ethiopia has made admirable gains in the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS, many families suffer daily from the disease and its stigma.

 

Sadly, stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS is still great in Ethiopia and HIV-positive people are generally shunned by their local community. Families will often refuse to accept HIV-positive kids after their parents die, leaving them with no support. As parents with HIV lose their jobs and the disease progresses, they are often unable to care for their children properly, and their kids suffer greatly as well.

 

Since Ethiopia started providing anti-retroviral medications in 2005, this generation of children has become the first to reach adulthood. Unfortunately, programs serving HIV-positive kids are mostly limited to Addis Ababa, which is a two-day bus journey from Tigray. Lola Children's Home is the first orphanage in Mekele to focus on HIV-affected children and to accept both HIV-positive and negative children. Most other orphanages will separate siblings based on their HIV status, but at Lola, they stay together.

 

With anti-retroviral treatment and general good health, people with HIV can expect to live well into their 60s and beyond.* Lola Children's Fund provides treatment and shelter for HIV orphans as well as allowing children with living HIV-positive parents to receive education, food and shelter during the day. Our family sponsorship program assists parents who are too ill to care for their children, while still allowing the family to remain together. Despite the overwhelming statistics about HIV and AIDS in Ethiopia, Lola Children's Home is a safe and caring environment for children dealing with HIV and its effects.

 

 

 

 *thebody.com