Assisting young OVC in communities in crisis: HIV/AIDS, conflict and social crisis
When a community is in a state of crisis, the premises for how one can help OVC change dramatically. Crisis drains the community of necessary project resources (both human and financial), and OVC needs will have to compete with many other urgent needs. Since (young) OVC are always an extremely weak constituency, their needs tend to loose out in the competition over scarce resources. Community-based solutions can be harder to achieve in such a context, and more external/centralized support and involvement may be required, both in preparing and running the program.
This situation is typical for conflict- affected communities, communities with a high burden of HIV/AIDS cases and poor urban areas characterized by high rates of unemployment, violence, crime and drugs (see model of risks facing young OVC borne into communities in crisis). Regardless of the dominant cause for child vulnerability in a heavily affected area, broad targeting of young OVC is recommended (e.g., all orphans, not just AIDS-orphans). Try to target deprived households in general to avoid contributing to stigma.
Children on the street: Deprived urban areas typically produce many children on the street (street children with a home, but who spend considerable time in the streets and public places – see the definition section). They come from dysfunctional households or households with poor, hard working single mothers who are working long hours in low-end jobs like domestic service or hawking. Since many are migrants to “new” (peri-) urban areas they tend to have a weak family and community network to help caring for their children, and the children either end up spending extensive time unattended or (insufficiently) attended only by older siblings (who are thus prevented from going to school). These young children often spend their time in the streets and public places around their shacks or around the mothers’ work place, where they are frequently put at risk of abuse, accidents and other health risks.
ECD projects in such areas should:
- focus on the 2-6 age group,
- to the extent possible be community-based,
- target poor women in the relevant neighborhoods broadly,
- be based on community- or home-based day care solutions, e.g. by appointing “community mothers” or “care points”,
- focus on protection, hygiene, nutrition, health, and cognitive stimulation (in that order),
(See Helen Penn for CHIP, chapter 8, for a further discussion of this topic.)
Children affected by armed conflict: During or after conflict, many young children are separated from their parents and/or families as they are sometimes left behind with relatives when the parents flee or migrate, or they are separated by accident during chaos and displacement. They also suffer trauma and so do their parents. If their situation is not taken seriously, they may generate considerable social costs in the future, and possibly even contribute to a resurgence of violence Young children who grow up outside or at the outskirts of families and communities are less likely to fully integrate social constraints on their behavior, and less likely to see their interest in maintaining the economic and political system. Hence, they become a cohort for recruitment by militia forces, urban gangs, and rural bandits.
ECD projects in conflict or post conflict areas should:
- engage in family tracing and reunification and integration with extended families for unaccompanied young children,
- provide ECD services in group homes and camps,
- give particular attention to prevention of long-term psychosocial harm and to psychosocial coping (both emotional and practical coping),
- assess state of trauma of caretakers, and if necessary also provide psychosocial care to caretakers -- you may also provide psychosocial support to the young child and the caretaker together, and in this latter case a focus on practical coping seems most promising (through counseling that contributes to finding strategies for solving everyday challenges the child/caretaker get a positive experience with solving everyday challenges),
- include exercises for peaceful conflict resolution for young children (for a good methodology on violence prevention among very young children, you can order Save the Children’s manual An Eye for an Eye leaves Everyone Blind.)
- promote playing together to develop friendships and child networks,
- nutrition, health and protection.
For more information, see the Project Appraisal Document (PAD) for the Eritrea Integrated Early Child Development Project for war orphans and Helen Penn for CHIP, chapter 8.
Children affected by HIV/AIDS: Young children can be affected by HIV/AIDS in several ways. They can be infected themselves or at risk of infection (in particular through breast feeding), they may have a severely ill parent, have lost a main household provider, or be orphaned or double orphaned (for orphans and ECD, see next paragraph). They may also live in a community that is heavily affected and suffer indirectly from the break down of community structures and services, and/or may be neglected because their own family is overburdened by their responsibility for the care of extended family members. In short, in communities heavily affected by HIV/AIDS, young children may, more broadly, become further deprived of vital attention, care and nutrition.
ECD projects in such communities should:
- target poor households broadly (both because even poor households without an infected member will be affected by the situation, and to fight against stigma),
- target 0-6 year olds, but also potentially seropositive pregnant women to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission, preferably through home-visiting programs,
- assess the home situation of young children, e.g., through home visiting programs, and when possible, contribute to maintaining the health and prolonging the life of caretakers of young children through medication and education,
- where appropriate, contribute to preparing the young child for orphanhood through legal protection against property grabbing, preserving records, creating memory books and boxes, identifying caring relatives, etc.
- fight stigma in communities and among potential foster parents,
- when home is heavily affected, offer day care facilities where psychosocial support, cognitive stimulation, nutrition and health services may be provided.
Also see: the Operational Guidelines for Supporting ECD in Multi-Sector HIV/AIDS Programs in Africa.
Orphans: Although AIDS orphans may in some places suffer from a stronger stigma than other orphans, many orphans are – regardless of the reason for their orphanhood – critically vulnerable.
Priorities for ECD interventions for young orphans should be:
- help to identify good foster homes,
- protect the young orphan’s legal records and legal rights,
- help to create memory books or boxes, even after the parents have died (by using information and objects provided by other family and community members),
- support child-headed households (protection, training, economic, nutritional and/or legal help), and support and protect older child caretakers,
- support to elderly caretakers of young OVC (protection, training, economic, nutritional and/or legal help),
- protect young orphans from abuse, (sexual) trafficking and exploitative child labor,
- support daycare options (preferably home based or community-based) that provide nutrition, health monitoring, cognitive stimulation and psychosocial support.
Eritrea : Integrated Early Childhood Development Project (IECDP)
The Integrated Early Childhood Development Project for Eritrea promotes the healthy growth and holistic development of Eritrean children. The project expands access to and improves the quality of services that address young children' s basic needs. There are five project components. The first component improves child health by providing on-the-job and pre-service training to health workers and caregivers; financing drugs, medical equipment, and supplies and strengthening procurement, storage, and distribution mechanisms; promoting adoption of healthy practices such as breastfeeding and the correct treatment of infections; using environmental health interventions to control childhood illnesses; and improving communications for behavioral change. The second component builds capacities for families and communities to improvie the nutritional and health status of children, by reducing micro- and macro-nutrient deficiency and improving food security; and builds capacity within ministries to implement the nutrition component. The third component improves quality and access to early childhood education, and institutional capacity at all administrative levels. The fourth component strengthens the traditional safety nets for childcare and protection through community-based reintegration and psychosocial support for orphans. Besides supporting the over-all management of the multi-sectoral program, the fifth component funds advocacy and sensitization campaigns and establishes an innovation fund.
Target groups
The IECDP program beneficiaries are the principal target groups which include about 560,000 children between zero and six years of age and about 310,000 primary school children. Interventions will be further divided into age-appropriate categories, i.e. those targeted towards younger age group of 0-3 years and those aimed at the older age group of 4 to 6 years. While some interventions such as Information Education and Communication (IEC) and Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses (IMCI) efforts are expected to cover about 560,000 young children, some activities such as kindergarten provision and non-formal early childhood education and care are expected to cover only about 31,000 and 90,000 children respectively. Supplementary therapeutic feeding will target only severely malnourished children. About 32,000 orphans will also benefit from the IECDP program. |
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