Orphans and Vulnerable Children
Orphaned and Vulnerable Children
About
50% of the population in Uganda are children who are poor,
orphaned, disabled and neglected. The combined curse of
HIV/AIDS, malaria, and poverty, has devastated entire
generations wreaking havoc on the family structure and all
aspects of family life. Since the early 1980’s, when AIDS was
first discovered in Uganda, 100’s of 1000’s of mothers, fathers,
aunts, and uncles have died. Disease has eliminated the most
productive members of society and today 9,000,000 people in
Uganda live on less than $1 a day. As a result, 8 million
children are classified as “vulnerable.” The children suffer the
heartbreak of watching as their mothers and fathers die knowing
that they may soon be one of the 2.2 million orphans living in
poverty, alone or at the mercy of abusive guardians. Overcome
with anxiety and fear, their question is , “Who will take care
of me? How will I survive?” In Uganda, 25% of families care for
an orphan. These families, hindered by poverty, have limited
resources. The unfortunate result is helpless orphans who feel
unwanted, unloved. Without appropriate guidance these children
leave their villages and migrate to large cities where they
become street children at the mercy unscrupulous criminals who
exploit them. The unfortunate result is a life of crime or
prostitution thereby proliferating the HIV/AIDS tragedy. According to the Uganda National Household Survey, a vulnerable child is “one who lives in a child-headed household or is a child laborer, an orphan, a child not in school, an idle child (that is, one without work or school), a married child, a child living in a household headed by an elderly person, a non-orphaned child not living with his or her parents, or a child living with a disability.” By this definition, 65 % of children in Uganda are orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC). Today, there are more than 2.2 million orphans and nearly 8 million vulnerable children in Uganda. And nearly half of the country’s orphans have lost one or both parents to the AIDS pandemic.
