Why I've started this blog

A few years ago I was privileged enough to meet an amazing AIDS activist from Zambia called Winstone Zulu. Winstone was the first person in Zambia to publicly talk about his HIV+ status. He told me that his 5 brothers and sister had all died from TB, and that if he hadn’t been lucky enough to receive a full course of TB treatment from outside his country, he would have died too. TB is the leading cause of death in Africa for people with HIV/AIDS. The tragedy is, just $10 worth of medications can cure it and give years more life to a patient. An even greater tragedy is that Winstone’s siblings had children, children that are now orphaned.

Winstone and his wife are now raising 35 children; most AIDS orphans aren’t that fortunate. More than 20 million children in the world have been orphaned by AIDS, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In Africa many children were looked after by kin when their parents died. Overstretched by the huge burden of poverty and increasing HIV prevalence, many families, communities and countries don’t have the resources to support these children. There is no cure for AIDS and the hardest hit areas often can’t afford treatment or prevention efforts: the numbers of orphaned children will only go up.

When I heard Winstone’s story I immediately wanted to go to Africa and do whatever I could to help. In two weeks I will be heading to the Hisani Centre in Mwanza, the second largest city in Tanzania. Hisani is a Swahili word which means kindness or fairness to those who are discriminated against by society. The Centre has only two members of staff and a handful of volunteers. It cares for street children whose parents have died of AIDS. About a hundred children live at the orphanage, and about another hundred children come to the Centre every day for school, food and medicine.

The Centre's meagre funding comes from overseas. For the most part this comes from volunteers who are asked to bring a suitcase of things for the children – clothes, books, toys, medical supplies (especially needed), even things like soap and shampoo - and to do whatever fundraising they can to help the Centre. Volunteers can design and implement projects with the funds they bring to the Centre.

In the past six weeks, volunteers’ funds have built a toilet and shower block (the children were using an outhouse on a neighbours property), six new chalkboards for teaching, two new dormitories (including indoor toilet and shower) to enable both children to be brought into the centre and for current children to spread out (they're sleeping up to 5 in a single bed), five new 3-level bunk beds, school shoes and backpacks for all the children, and dental work for the children who needed it.

Thanks to the generosity of my supporters, my suitcase contains clothes, toys, art supplies, books and first aid materials. I have raised funds to take with me and will keep you updated on the project the Centre embarks on. To those that have helped, I am deeply honoured that you are supporting me in this.

Natasha