Brighter Future India: HIV / AIDS Children

We found Roopa but it was too late to save her.

Brighter Future has three homes for children infected at birth with HIV/AIDS.
We care for 80 HIV infected children.

Durga Prasad

Some of them have one parent still living with HIV, others have lost both their parents.They have seen their parents become ill and die, they have experienced the downward spiral into poverty as the breadwinner sickens and dies. There is no welfare system to support them and their mothers. Their mothers have to beg from relatives and neighbours for food. Many are blamed for the death of their husbands and badly treated by the in-laws.

Ramesh

Children are often refused school places. Others have to leave school because their parent/s can not afford to pay the school fees or for books. The whole family may be ostracised and have to move away from their village. Many orphans live with elderly grandparents who cannot support a child who is continually susceptible to sickness and diarrhoea because their immune system offers no resistance to the infections that are rife where there is no clean water or proper sanitation. Children watch helplessly as their mothers die of AIDS.

Giri

Prem

You can give an innocent sick child a chance of a happy life in one of our homes where they will get medical care, be given regular anti-retroviral treatment, a nutritious diet, vitamin and supplements, clean water and food, in hygienic surroundings and a big dose of love, and enable them go to school and live like normal children.
We take the most vulnerable children into our special homes for children with HIV/AIDS.

The children were born with HIV and most of them are complete orphans.

Some children are referred to Brighter Future because they have no one willing or able to look after them. Some of the children, like Roopa, were malnourished and are very ill.

James

HIV infected children suffer from many illnesses that cause fungal skin infections and TB, as well as the common childhood diseases, because their immune systems are very weak and their bodies cannot resist the germs.

James

James had skin infections all over his body that took
months to heal. Now he is a happy boy (with scars).

Sanyasi was very ill with TB,HIV
and malnutrition

If the children have a nutritious diet, clean water, good personal hygiene, regular rest and exercise they can live longer before they need to start on the very strong drugs that help to slow down the progression to full AIDS.

Our HIV children’s homes enable the children to have a happy childhood, go to school and prepare for their future.

Prem Nivas (House of Love) was opened in October 2006

Karuna Nivas (House of Compassion) followed in 2009.It is in Srikakulam District, the poorest district, with high unemployment, low literacy levels and many cases of unregistered HIV.

and Thompson House in June 2012.

We now have 88 HIV+ children in our three residential homes.

We buy only the best medicines, and have to pay doctors fees and for laboratory investigations. There is no national health service in India.

It costs £30 a month to sponsor an HIV infected child.

These children would love to have a sponsor to care for them

The children go to school and we prepare them for an independent life in the future.

Four children are doing the equivalent of A levels, One boy has completed his degree course.
One is awaiting the equivalent of O levels results this month.