Buds of Christ

The advancements in care and treatment for HIV has brought in hope to many children and young people living with HIV, to live and contribute much to the society. As this success is seen,the challenge in helping children born with HIV and who have grown into adolescence is often neglected in our current programmes. The issue becomes more complex for adolescents ,especially girls from lower income group , and under the care of grandparents and widowed mothers. The reason being, mostly of the adolescents show lack of interest in studies and often perform poor in academics. Thanks to the department of education in allowing children pass till their 9 th grade that they go to school, but in their 10 th grade, most of them have not been able to pass the grade .On comparing the performance of adolescents enrolled with the center, more number of girls have failed than the boys. Such girls, especially those brought up by grandparents; do not show interest in pursuing their studies fur

My brother,Ramu (name changed) has become a man says a 9 year old girl about her  14 year old brother. When we asked how do you say that she expressed “he knows to smoke and even drinks and plays cards with his friends” This is the condition of the boy and girl who had lost their parents when they were small and looked after by their aged aunt and uncle. The boy was stopped from school by his aunt when he was 12 years to support the income of the family. In spite of persuasion from our end to encourage him to go to school, his aunt was very firm about the decision. Now after 2 years though ramu is still a child has become independent in making his choice over drinking and smoking and even becoming violent against his aunt. Currently of the 200 children we reach through Buds of Christ, 25 are children without both parents and about 90 are living with their widowed mother. In this condition many families struggle hard to send the children to school. It is to such families, Bud