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Vedas Kids

Give hope to children

Send help to: VEDA'S CHILDREN CENTRE
P.O BOX 11146, ARUSHA TANZANIA
e-mailto: vedastusw@yahoo.com

VEDA’S CHILDREN LIVING IN A HOPE CENTRE
Veda's Children is a youth-run organization dedicated to assisting orphans and vulnerable children in Arusha infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. We work *within* communities to build capacity in identifying the needs of vulnerable children and youth in order to develop community-based programs that are sustaining and culturally appropriate

Organizational Vision
Stable Home Life: It is the goal of Veda's Children for children affected and infected with HIV/AIDS to have a place to call 'home'.

General Plan of Action
Fundraising
The care of children with an, as yet, incurable disease may not seem an economically profitable enterprise but economics cannot surpass a humanitarian endeavor. With the ever increasing number of HIV/AIDS infected and affected children, we expect the project to engage the larger community in caring for these voiceless and vulnerable children.

Our Comments
Many things we need can wait, the child cannot. Now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, his mind is being developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow. His name is today."
It is intended that Veda's Children will make a positive contribution to identifying and caring for such children in Tanzania. The project will not work in isolation, as caring for a child cannot be done alone. This is why the project is called Veda's Children- in honour of a man who touched many lived through his compassion towards children.

It is a belief that this project will serve as a pilot project to be replicated within Arusha and throughout Tanzania. It is expected that Veda's Children will become a beacon of hope to children who desperately need one.

Expected Outcome
The outcome of Veda's Children is to give hope to children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in Tanzania and beyond. We will also support and initiate community-based projects that educate and mobilize communities in the care of children orphaned through HIV/AIDS. Such projects will allow for most vulnerable families to meet daily needs and send children to school. Income-generating projects include projects in agriculture and sewing. These projects would enable the family to take care of the children as well as enabling the child to acquire valuable life skills.

Background
AIDS has had devastating impacts among children on the African continent -- especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. UNICEF estimates that Tanzania will have up to one million children orphaned by AIDS by the year 2000. According USAID projections, Tanzania will have 4.2 million orphans who will have lost their parents to AIDS by 2010 if current HIV infection rates do not drastically decrease.
This means that every third child in Tanzania will be an orphan. Extended family systems in the African culture have traditionally provided support for orphans. AIDS, combined with other pressures such as migration, is pushing the extended family system to a breaking point in the worst affected communities. As a result, many AIDS orphans are looked after by their grandparents. But the grandparents themselves may be in need of health care. The death of a grandparent may create a situation where there is nobody else in the extended family willing or able to care for the children. This gives rise to orphan households headed by older siblings. Increasingly in communities with major AIDS epidemics families are cared for either by the very young or the very old.
Children who lose a parent to AIDS suffer the grief and confusion experienced by any orphan. However, their loss is often worsened by prejudice and social exclusion, including the loss of education, health care, even of the property they are entitled to inherit. The resulting poverty and isolation can create a vicious circle, placing them at greater risk of contracting HIV themselves.

Your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated!