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

Popular posts from this blog

Confidence Building Camp for Orphan Adolescents

Image
What is Buds N Colors Camp? Buds N Colors camp is for adolescent children orphaned and affected by HIV and AIDS in the HIV high prevalent Namakkal district in Tamilnadu. The aim of this camp is to share love, build hope and strengthen faith to live life with dignity and courage. Why this camp? Adolescents living with HIV find it hard to set higher goals due to the fear that dominates their emotions. HIV has affected their self –image causing a severe low self esteem. Our experiences from the previous camp have shown, given a space for the adolescents, they emerge as leaders of hope and change for others like them. Who are the participants at Buds N Colors Camp? This camp is exclusively for adolescent children who have lost one or both parents to HIV and AIDS in the age group of 12 to 18 years. Around 40 adolescent children will participate in this camp What is the uniqueness of the camp? This camp provides opportunity for creating peer buddies among
Read more

Nothing is impossible for those that BELIEVE – Bharathi has scored 408 in 10th public exams amidst difficult circumstances

Image
It is another joyous moment to share that our children have excelled in their 10 th public exams and going beyond the limitations and challenges once again. The experiences of these children, especially widow headed households face the pressures of early marriages; or stopping education and sent for work to support the family income. In addition if they are the most backward caste in the community, they are often discriminated by other members in the community. Bharathi has put her dream path, possible challenges and how she would overcome them  Bharathi is from the most backward community and living with her widowed mother. She has one elder sister who eloped and got married to a boy from the neighbouring village. Bearing the stigma of run-away sister, widowed mother’s daughter and the caste discrimination, along with severe power cuts that lasted up to 12 hours in a day, Bharathi as young as 14 years took these obstacles as milestones to prove her capacity and bring a grea
Read more

Educating Children Enabling Independence

Image
“Education is for improving the lives of other and for leaving our community and world better than we found it.” Buds of Christ organised Education support program for boys and girls on 7 October 2021. 16 children from class 9 th to 12 th participated and received school bags and notebooks.   The event started with a moral story on Being Focussed on the Vision for life shared by Mr. Jeyapaul Director of Buds of Christ. Following that Communication skill was taught to children as part of Life Skills Education.   The reason for Buds of Christ to enhance the skills of children on Life skills goes with the quote that “Education is not just about going to school and getting a degree. It’s about widening our knowledge and absorbing the truth about life".   This was followed by life experience sharing by the Program Chief Guest Ms. Kaleeswari, Commercial Assistant from TamilNadu Electricity Board.   She shared her life history and motivated the children to be eager for studies. She also
Read more