St Johns AIDS Support Group
St Johns AIDS project used its funding allocation to improve care to people with AIDS in Mzuzu city. Some of the money was used to support children affected with HIV/AIDS through community based child care centres and to provide loans to people living with HIV/AIDS. The project goal was to improve the quality of life of the communities infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in the target area.
Care for children
Ninety children were provided with nursery care through the community child care centres. The 90 children are composed of 70 girls and 20 boys that attend early childhood development. Eight Care givers were adequately trained in the management of Community Based Child care centers. The care givers were from Masasa, Chiputula, Chibavi and Chiputula. There is need to train more care givers, as two are not enough for each centre. The needs to provide resources to care givers to enable them work effectively. We need to conduct a learning visit to other CBOs and acquire advanced knowledge and skills.
Training of volunteers
Training in psychosocial support was provided to 10 volunteers from the 7 zones. The need to have this training came about due to the large number of orphans in Mzuzu city. AT the end of the training programme participants received skills identification of psychosocial problems and how they can support those affected. St Johns AIDS project works in collaboration with the District Social welfare Office to provide support to destitute children. So far over 20 children whose parents died of AIDS have been counseled.
Providing Hospital Based Counselling
St Johns volunteers have been trained to provide hospital based counseling to patients. In the short span of the project 72 clients have been assisted with pre-test and post-test HIV counseling. The challenge remains the inability of the counselors conduct to blood tests. So far 16 volunteers were trained in counseling skills.
This programme is also linked to the free ARV programme being implemented by the government at the biggest referral hospital in the Northern region.
