My Name is Faudhia Kitenge; I am 21 year old girl with Albinism.
My dream is to live in an Africa where children with albinism are not considered ghosts of bad luck; where people with albinism do not have to live in fear of being hunted for their body parts; where people with albinism are not only well educated but also leaders in their countries!
My name is Sungano Bondayi, I was born in 1989 in Zimbabwe, and I was born with HIV.
In 2005, I was fortunate enough to join an amazing organisation working with young people living with HIV called Africaid-Zvandiri. A few years later, I was given an opportunity to join a storytelling project along with five other adolescents. This is my story!
On 21 April 2015 RIATT-ESA hosted its third webinar on the prevalence and predictors of child abuse. Thirty organizations signed up and 18 particpated in the lively session indicating wide interest in the topic.
The webinar featured presentations on research conducted in South Africa and Malawi. The research looked at forms of violence suffered by children; where children are being victimized and abused; and by whom. It aslo looked at links to how children affected by HIV are made vulnerable to abuse and victimization.
On Thursday the 23rd of April RIATT-ESA and REPSSI joined 57 organisations and up to seven thousand people to march against Xenophobia in South Africa.
RIATT-ESA joined the march to raise awareness for the children affected by xenophobia. Its banner declared “Don’t let the children fall off the map, STOP xenophobia”.
I realized this afternoon that the world has nothing new on prevention. Last conference we were talking about VMMC – voluntary medical male circumcision – I felt then that we were kind of grasping at straws. Now it is more of the same, and an acknowledgement that we have to go back to communities. We need to know where and why there are higher rates of HIV incidence (new cases of HIV) and start tackling the social issues that drive it. In Uganda this may be fishing communities and truck drivers. Migrancy in general is highlighted in the UNAIDS Gap Report. Adolescents too. As deaths due to AIDS are declining in other age groups they are still increasing in adolescents.
In 2011, children from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Uganda used disposable cameras to take pictures that illustrate the role they play in their home and community, and the kind of support that they receive from their communities.
Entitled "What I do for my community, what my community does for me", the photo exhibition emphasises the importance of community-level action in the care and support for children made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS.
