Families United to Fight AIDS

Hope in Bujumbura, Burundi

This grass-root family oriented group was created in 1992, and is still going strong. It's primary objective is: the social integration of orphans of AIDS in host families. There are millions of children who are affected by AIDS, whose lives have been disrupted, and who themselves have become infected by AIDS. But there are courageous and generous people in Burundi who, 11 years ago, decided to act - not just as individuals, but as families.

They aim to meet the essential needs of the HIV / AIDS orphans: food, lodging, education, and health care. There are now groups in three provinces in Burundi: Bujumbura, Gitega, and Bururi.

What exactly have they been doing?

• Finding and supporting the host families through income- generating activities.
• AIDS prevention programs.
• Social, cultural, and moral assistance for orphans.
• School education for some 3,700 orphans in the 2002-03 school year alone.
• Temporary lodging and feeding of needy orphans.
• Legal and medical help for orphans.
• Building homes and providing job opportunities for adolescent orphans.
• Social integration of teenage and adolescent orphans in host families.

Orphans - Dining Room.     (Photo sent June 9, 2003.) Those orphans in school uniform were having their meal after coming home from school.

Family Integration. This girl in black shirt carrying a baby in her hand was being integrated in her family. The lady with a hand bag works at F.V.S. and had accompanied her.