World Vision’s Experience Working with HIV/AIDS Orphans in Uganda

Excerpts from the Abstract and Introduction

"This paper examines World Vision's experience in Uganda, where World Vision implemented its first major programme of assistance for the orphans of HIV/AIDS in the rural districts of Masaka, Rakai and Gulu from 1990 to 1995. The paper describes the challenges created by HIV/AIDS andconflict, the main initiatives taken by World Vision to provide support to vulnerable children, and to strengthen the capacity of families and communities to cope.

An attempt is made to highlight the key lessons learned and to identify which of the initiatives are considered replicable.

The report found that there was awareness among the people in Masaka and Rakai about the enormity of the AIDS crisis. Yet there was a sense of dignity with which people were facing up to the devastation of HIV/AIDS. At both family and community level, there was a general feeling that the people should do all that was possible to ensure that children being orphaned by AIDS were not lost to the community.