children and youth who had been orphaned by AIDS

NextAid's pilot project in South Africa, where I was volunteering, was intended to provide a home to children and youth who had been orphaned by AIDS. While I was familiar with the term "AIDS Orphan", the gravity of these children's reality was not really fathomable to me until I found myself living among ten or so children who had lost one or both parents to "the disease".

One heartbreaking story after another is the reality of life in Dennilton during the time of AIDS. One boy, at age 11, had to take his mother to the hospital in a wheelbarrow where she later died. Ambulances and even regular cars are beyond the reach of most. A family of young teenage girls were living as a "child-headed household" in order to care for their younger siblings.

Among these countless stories, one can't help but wonder why? Why here? Why still? It wasn't for lack of awareness about the disease. Upon driving into the town of Dennilton, you are bombarded by a series of odd roadside billboards. Each of these signs promotes HIV prevention through some quirky slogan and graphic. Dennilton had an advantage over many rural South African communities in that it had a government hospital as well as a non-profit community clinic focused on treating HIV/AIDS. This clinic was privately funded by Dutch donors and received U.S. government PEPFAR funding. Several community-based organizations, including NextAid's local partner in the community center project, were active in addressing various aspects of the disease such as home-based care or school and church-based prevention campaigns.