Every month Brighter Future takes life saving food and medicine parcels to Narasannapeta.
Narasannapeta is the large vilage, with a population of 75000, in Srikakulam district, about 100km from Brighter Future's base at DMC House in Vizianagaram.
Srikakulam district is sandwiched between the mountainous Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Biscay. It borders the state of Odisha and is officially regarded as 'backward' because of the poverty of its people, who rely on agriculture and gathering forest crops, in a difficult climate. There is little industry. Women and girls play a very traditional role in the household and literacy rates are low, especially among women.
On the edge of Narasannapetta, 25 km from the chief town of Srikakulam district, confusingly also called Srikakulam, is our Karuna Nivas Home for children with HIV/Aids Karuna Nivas opened in 2010 in an old school building next to Narasannapeta Leprosy Colony. Brighter Future rents the building from the Leprosy Colony. We have 20 children at Karuna Nivas in the care of Mary our Nurse/Housemother and her staff.
On the edge of Narasannapetta, 25 km from the chief town of Srikakulam district, confusingly also called Srikakulam, is our Karuna Nivas Home for children with HIV/Aids Karuna Nivas opened in 2010 in an old school building next to Narasannapeta Leprosy Colony. Brighter Future rents the building from the Leprosy Colony. We have 20 children at Karuna Nivas in the care of Mary our Nurse/Housemother and her staff.
The children, apart from Ram babu our graduate, go to local schools and it is while they are at school during the day, that Brighter Future uses the building as a community centre where HIV infected mothers can see our Doctor and Nurse, meet one another and collect parcels of food and medicine to supplement their own resources.
This month 100 women came to collect the 5kg rice, 1/2 kg each of wheat, soya, peanuts and cooking oil.
These women are malnourished and very few of them can find work on the days that they feel well. Although our Pastor has helped them to apply for pensions only a handful of them actually receive the £2 a month.
Government pension plans tend to be proposed and superseded before they come to fruition! Two years ago it was announced that only government registered women, who had not missed one single appointment since 2008 to collect their ART (anti retro viral medicine), would be eligible for a pension. A year wise roll out was proposed. How can anyone who is racked with weakness, sickness and body pains not miss one single appointment? Finding food takes up a large proportion of the day for many of our women, begging and scavenging. Many cannot find the bus fare to the medicine collection point! Those that have little jobs, like washing up in roadside cafe's get paid in kind not cash. If you want agricultural work you assemble at a known place and wait to be chosen to work - rather like the biblical story of hiring the workers for the vineyard.
With lentils costing 80p a kg how far would £2 go?
Our mothers with a permanent address and ration books can get 35kg of cheap government rice. Those with young children are glad that their child is eligible for a hot meal at school.The majority of our HIV/Aids patients rely on our food parcels to survive from one month to the next. Some have no other source of food. We also give prophylaxis to supplement the 10 tablets the government gives them. Our doctor gives vitamins and other general medicines as needed.
Over the last eight years that Brighter Future has been caring for these people there has been some significant changes. We now have men coming for food parcels. Previously widows came after their husbands had died. Nowadays we have men coming for the parcels - they are surviving because ART is available - they are living instead of dying. They are also able to spread the infection and need councilling about their lifestyle!
This month 100 women came to collect the 5kg rice, 1/2 kg each of wheat, soya, peanuts and cooking oil.
These women are malnourished and very few of them can find work on the days that they feel well. Although our Pastor has helped them to apply for pensions only a handful of them actually receive the £2 a month.
Government pension plans tend to be proposed and superseded before they come to fruition! Two years ago it was announced that only government registered women, who had not missed one single appointment since 2008 to collect their ART (anti retro viral medicine), would be eligible for a pension. A year wise roll out was proposed. How can anyone who is racked with weakness, sickness and body pains not miss one single appointment? Finding food takes up a large proportion of the day for many of our women, begging and scavenging. Many cannot find the bus fare to the medicine collection point! Those that have little jobs, like washing up in roadside cafe's get paid in kind not cash. If you want agricultural work you assemble at a known place and wait to be chosen to work - rather like the biblical story of hiring the workers for the vineyard.
With lentils costing 80p a kg how far would £2 go?
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| New HIV/Aids patients found and tested positive in July 2015 |
Our mothers with a permanent address and ration books can get 35kg of cheap government rice. Those with young children are glad that their child is eligible for a hot meal at school.The majority of our HIV/Aids patients rely on our food parcels to survive from one month to the next. Some have no other source of food. We also give prophylaxis to supplement the 10 tablets the government gives them. Our doctor gives vitamins and other general medicines as needed.
Over the last eight years that Brighter Future has been caring for these people there has been some significant changes. We now have men coming for food parcels. Previously widows came after their husbands had died. Nowadays we have men coming for the parcels - they are surviving because ART is available - they are living instead of dying. They are also able to spread the infection and need councilling about their lifestyle!
Food and medicine parcels cost £7 per person per month.
Another part of this project is when our staff go into the villages to find people who do not know they have HIV. The doctor and pastor set up a general 'health camp' and villagers come along with their problems. Prescriptions are given and suspect HIV cases are discretely invited to go with our nurse to be tested at the special government centres in the large towns. Confirmed cases that have a large amounts of the virus in their bodies are started on the drugs that will slow down the progress of the virus. Those with less virus have to wait until they are more severely infected!
(In the West treatment is started when the patient has less virus in the blood, In the West all children are started on the ART as soon as HIV is confirmed).
(In the West treatment is started when the patient has less virus in the blood, In the West all children are started on the ART as soon as HIV is confirmed).
It was this programme that found Nilaveni.
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| Nilaveni |
Getting started on the very toxic drugs can cause a lot of sickness, diarrhoea and fever in malnourished people with protein deficiency. Some abandon the treatment. Some stop and start. Both very dangerous scenarios.
Our food and vitamin parcels help the patients to adjust to the medicines. Some patients are admitted to our Hospice to acclimatise to the treatment.Of course as India has 70% of the world's TB it is also necessary to test for that infection and treat it. In children the TB manifests itself as glandular TB rather than pulmonary TB.
