HIV/AIDS Orphans Have Given Grandmothers the Challenge of Full Time Parenthood

A high-pitched cry of an infant could be heard from somewhere in the home in Buwaiswa village, in Kamuli district. The home constitutes two huts and a makeshift reception hall.

Skolastica Namuwaya, 75, emerges from one of the huts. Her face is contorted and the shadows around her eyes give her a lost look.

The incessant wails of the infant strapped on her back, make her pace around the small compound, soothing the little one. And then the sound of footsteps suddenly draws her attention.

Three juveniles and a toddler trotting from behind bustle in the courtyard and chuckling.

"Will you take that millet outside instead of chattering like weaver birds," the aging woman tells the children.

The children first scamper in disarray before coming back to do the chore. When we reach her, the old woman's face melts into a sad smile and she apologizes uncomfortably as she welcomes us.

All Namuwaya's seven children died of AIDS. Tears course down her cheeks as she talks about her children. "The last of my children died last month," she says, taking a deep breath before throwing up her hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Last week, his wife also died; shortly after giving birth to the baby I am carrying." However, the grief she has experienced has not taken away Namuwaya's compassion for the orphans.

"I am glad that my children will not be forgotten completely. At least they have left behind six orphans," she says. Namuwaya's calamity shows the grief many grandparents endure when the HIV/AIDS pandemic wipes out the productive generation.

With no business, property or money left by her deceased children, looking after six orphans is a daunting task.

However, her plight attracted the attention of the Organisation of Life for the Marginalised (OGLM), a charity organisation. Namuwaya says she is grateful that she no longer gets depressed about the future of her grandchidren.

The organisation was established in 1995 with an objective of educating and supporting marginalised communities affected by HIV/AIDS in rural and peri-urban areas.

It is funded by humanitarian organisations in Canada, U.S. and the Netherlands. It caters for 93 grandparents and 350 orphans in Bugiri, Iganga, Kamuli and Mayuge districts. The organisation also works with former sex workers who want to start a new life.

The organisation also runs an orphanage in Buwaiswa, in Kamuli, which caters for 42 children.

The director of the organisation, Christopher Kalema, says they provide education to the orphans as well as economically empowering the grandparents and former sex workers.

"Because many of the grandparents who look after the orphans are weak and not very productive, the families suffer from food scarcity," Kalema says, adding that malnutrition and illness are the major problems in such homes.

Kalema says they started the HIV/AIDS grandmothers' scheme in 2000 after he visited a grandparent in Bulesa, Bugiri district, who was looking after eight orphans all below the age 10.

The project support officer, Henry Ibanda, says under the grandparents' scheme, priority has been put to providing orphans with quality education.

"We enroll orphans in schools and provide them with scholastic materials," Ibanda says, adding that they are also encouraging grandparents to engage in commercial projects.

"We have also been giving them two pigs to help them fight poverty," he says. Kalema says the organisation has also embarked on a campaign to convince sex workers to leave the occupation.

"Our objective was to create awareness about HIV/AIDS among the sex workers and distribute condoms," he says.

"Thirty seven sex workers have already denounced prostitution." Kalema says they provide them with soft loans ranging from sh100, 000 to sh200,000, accessed from a rehabilitation revolving fund worth sh3m.

The recipients are taught numerous business skills before they are given the loans. Kalema says most of the sex workers are single mothers who dropped out of school, so they have no skills for any career.

The rehabilitation micro credit officer, Edith Nakafu says the recovery of money from former sex workers is good.

"The women are hard working and committed to their new life" says Nakafu. Jamira, a former sex worker who sells second-hand clothes in Jinja Central Market, says she is delighted that the rehabilitation loan scheme has enabled her to begin a new life.

While Christine, who runs a grocery at Mbiko, says the organisation has given her hope. "I have learned to ignore what people say about my former life. I can provide for my children and pay for my rent promptly," she says.

The organisation also plans to put up a sh500m education centre in Kamuli that will constitute a primary, secondary and technical institution plus a health centre.

For more details contact;

Christopher Kalema
(Programs' Director)
Organization For Good Life of the Marginalized (OGLM)
Mvule Crescent 46 Opposite 3rd Lane
P.O.Box 19 Jinja Uganda E.Africa
 
Tel +256-43-122840 or +256-43-243332
Fax +256-43-121322
Cel +256-78-380611 or 0774157705
E-mail: Chris.Kalema@oglm.org
Web: www.oglm.org