Life Skills for Young Orphans

Ervline Awino, 15, is her family's sole provider. Her father died of AIDS five years ago; her mother is infected now; and her five sisters are under age 10. Ervline is one of a growing number of Kenyan children forced by the AIDS epidemic to play the part of adult at home. And while orphanages can offer a bed and meals, aid groups are increasingly trying to salvage something lost in institutions: the warmth and support that can come only from family ties. "These children should not be sent away to orphanages or boarding schools, because being lonely only adds to trauma," said Tobias Odero, a counselor with the Baltimore-based Christian Children's Fund. "When the siblings are together, they feel warmth . . . If they are separated, they are weak. They lose their roots."

Odero spends his days visiting the homes of the orphans in the region, assisting with finances and morale. According to the World Health Organization, some 12 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. In Kenya, 600 people die every day from AIDS, and surviving children are left to protect themselves and their family land. Increasingly, relatives who traditionally would take children in are simply too overwhelmed.

Like a growing number of nongovernmental organizations across the continent, Kibera Community Self Help Project (KCSHP) provides services for AIDS orphans and helps them stay together in family units. The agency has set up a free school for these orphans, and offers counseling, healthcare, and classes in sewing and woodwork. Volunteers follow the youngest orphans home to make sure they bathe and eat, and support groups are offered for the older orphans. "We train them in self-reliance so they know they have to look after themselves; they know there is no one else who will do it," said Caroline Omondi, head of KCSHP orphans program, who was orphaned by AIDS herself.

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