Become a godparent to vulnerable kids

AIDS' stigma hurts pre-school children

Too often, the stigma prompts people with the virus to refuse to be tested, and leaves those who know they have AIDS to become ostracized.

“The stigma, it’s widespread,” said Megan Svec, World Concern AIDS specialist. Often, ignorance about the disease’s spread drives the stigma. But, as Megan notes, “there are  people who do know something about it (AIDS’ spread).”

In hundreds of small gatherings, World Concern employees and volunteers work to break the stigma by educating people about how AIDS is spread and the reality facing orphans.

Caregivers are recruited, including grandparents and neighbors. The goal: to bring AIDS out of the darkness and, in turn, bring the children hurt the most into the light. Still, there continues to be shame.

“You might ask an orphan how their parents die, and they would say they were sick for a long time. And AIDS doesn’t come up,” said Svec.

Contributing to the problem are misguided pastors who rail against the sin sometimes involved in the contraction of the disease, further prompting the community to keep AIDS a secret.

World Concern is working with pastors, though, and has convinced many to become examples to their congregations, bringing the disease into the open by getting publicly tested for AIDS and at times persuading their congregations to do the same.

In the meantime, thousands of orphans are trying to find their place. For Crispin, that means living with her grandmother, Ruth Gikero.

Ruth doesn’t know her own age, but she is Crispin’s great-grandmother. Ruth’s daughter died of AIDS, leaving four children and one grandchild behind.

Now it’s up to a woman who has already lived a long life to rear young children, all because of a disease few want to discuss.