Little Stars are Our Children Courageously Living with HIV and AIDS



Yes it’s another little star group of children coming together to learn and to also share their love with each other. These children are children living with HIV who are below 14 years and are on treatment. As most of them belong to the poor economic condition and their care takers are not educated, the information about their health and treatment is less among them and often result in casual attitude towards treatment. It is through the Little Stars support group meeting, the information is shared to the children so that they adopt positive living. In addition, these meetings also help them to experience the love of their peers more freely without the fear of stigma and discrimination.

The sessions are planned to include health related topic, life skills session and a value based education. Different techniques are used to engage the children and also help them learn information faster.

The little stars is organised every month at Tiruchengode and Salem that includes song time, life skill session on understanding their ideal person and making right choices of the Ideal person, value education from Thirukural on the qualities of an Ideal person through puppet show and session on HIV and AIDS basics and understanding the health monitoring blood tests reports. 

The Super child of the month award was given to children whose medical reports show good immune level and good weight gain to encourage other children towards maintaining good health. In addition, we also celebrate birthday cake cutting for children who celebrate birthdays in that month and this gives a special feeling, as most of the orphan children in rural families do not celebrate such occasion in their families.

At the end, the children also shared their feedback;

“I now got detailed understanding of how HIV transmits” – a 12 year old girl living with HIV

“I often worry about going to the hospital for check-ups and especially for blood tests, but now I know these blood tests, help me know my immunity level and I am happy my CD4 is more than 1000 now”.-13 year old orphan boy living with HIV

“I feel more happy, because I was awarded the super girl for having CD4 2000, Hemoglobin level is 16mg and will always maintain the level”. - 13 year old orphan girl living with HIV

“I felt very happy for my sister who cut the cake with her friends as her birthday is in July”  - a 8 year old orphan girl living with her grandparents

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