AIDS: Orphans get
support
by Patrick Chapita
Hundreds of thousands of children at
commercial farms who are expected to lose
parents to AIDS over the next decade, are now
likely to be reasonably brought up after the
launch of the Farm Orphan Support Trust
(FOST) in the month of July this year.
One million Zimbabweans are believed
to be HIV positive. Last year, one in every
six children was an orphan and the country is
expected to have at least 600000 orphans by
the year 2000.
The Trust's steering committee
chairperson, Dr. Sue Parry, told Africanews
that at least 200000 children could be
orphaned on farms over the next decade due to
the AIDS epidemic.
"Support structures need to be in
place before the anticipated massive
escalation of orphanhood in the farms becomes
a reality", Dr Parry said. "Since
the project is massive it needed a lot of
support to succeed." she added.
"Just to illustrate the magnitude
of the support needed, if there were say
100000 AIDS orphans on farms ... it would
mean that the sum of Z$ 5 million would have
to be found every month merely to support
this aspect of the Trust." Dr Parry
said.
FOST will facilitate the establishment
of foster schemes with community awareness
creation, including cultural sensitivity,
assistance with `care-giving' and community
fund-raising for the financing of the
schemes. The membership of Fost includes all
farmers' Associations affiliated to the
Commercial Organisations working in the field
of orphan care.
Contact:
The Chairperson
FOST
Box 1622
Harare
Zimbabwe
Fax: 750754
Tel (14) 753278/9
AFRICANEWS