Offering a ray of hope

Christine is a single mother and HIV positive. When she got sick, her partner left. She has four children, one is disabled and has gone to a home. She also looks after 3 orphans, the children of her siblings [Caroline Irby]

Christine is a single mother and is HIV positive. Volunteers visit her in her home every week to offer her practical help and support

HIV and AIDS is ravaging Zambia. Almost one million Zambians are living with HIVor AIDS, and more than 750,000 Zambian children have been orphaned.

Although programmes by government and NGOs have begun to slow its spread, life expectancy in Zambia is still less than 33 years.

The Copperbelt Province of Zambia has suffered in particular because of its transient working population. In response, the Diocese of Ndola – CAFOD’s partner – set up a home-based care programme to reach out to people in their own homes.

Practical and emotional support

Volunteers and nurses visit the homes of people such as Christine, who is living with HIV. Christine’s husband left her when she got sick.

Now she cares for her four children alone, as well as looking after the three orphaned children of her sister and brother in a cramped two-room shack.

In turn, the volunteers offer Christine practical and emotional support, making sure she and her family have enough food to eat to stay healthy, and cooking and cleaning when Christine does not feel up to it.

Most days Christine feels too weak to fetch water or tend the small plot of land near her home. But volunteers from the home-based care programme offer Christine and her family a ray of hope.

They also help people living with HIV and AIDS to set up their own income-generating projects.

“It’s a gift from God to be a care giver,” says volunteer Mary Sanduku. “I really feel for the people and I say to myself: "If it was me, someone would care for me, so I want to help people who need it.”

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