Donor support needed for religious organisations helping orphans - report

Donor support is needed for the increasing number of church groups and mosques looking after Africa's orphans, most of whose parents have died of AIDS-related illnesses, says a report produced by the UN Children's Fund and the World Conference of Religions for Peace. "The scale of the response from churches and mosques is far greater than anybody ever imagined," said Dr Geoff Foster, author of "Study of the Response by Faith-based Organisations to Orphans and Vulnerable Children". The report was released at the 13th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA), being held in Nairobi from 21 to 26 September. Research conducted with 322 groups (out of 505 processed), in six countries, showed that almost 140,000 orphans and vulnerable children were being supported - mostly by female volunteers - with essentials like clothing and food, school assistance, HIV prevention, counselling, and home visiting. Responses were initiated after seeing increasing numbers going hungry, lacking clothing, not going to school, lacking parental guidance and being raped, otherwise abused or pregnant, the report stated. "One of the major recommendations of the study is that donors should support the operation of small grants funds through Religious Coordinating Bodies to support activities initiated by congregations," it said. The fact that so many separate initiatives had sprung up in communities, suggested that "homegrown approaches" based around community priorities were the most appropriate response to the HIV/AIDS crisis, it added. Almost 50 percent of the initiatives had been started within the last four years, Foster told IRIN, showing that the stigma that was so often attached to HIV/AIDS was slowly being overcome. "Many of the religious leaders said to us 'we realise that in the past we've been part of the problem, not part of the solution," he said. But while some faith-based organisations were prepared to help children, who are deemed to be 'innocent', they were not prepared to help adults who were HIV-positive, he added. In 1990, AIDS accounted for only 3 percent of deaths that left children orphaned in African countries. By 2010 the number will have risen to 48 percent.