Increased Care and Support to Orphans and Vulnerable Children in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa

is a cooperative agreement being implemented by AVSI in the countries of Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya with funding from USAID through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and from AVSI.

Success Stories

Adoption of a Young Mother -- Elizabeth's Story

Elizabeth was fifteen years old when she left her home in Kabale district in south western Uganda to live with her aunt and attend secondary school in Jinja. With school sponsorship provided by AVSI through the OVC program, Elizabeth entered Mother Kevin Secondary School (MKS) where her teachers found her to be bright and out going. At some point, Elizabeth’s teachers began to note a change in her demeanor and conveyed their concern to Sr. Boni, the school’s headmaster. Sr. Boni quickly recognized the dramatic change in Elizabeth and one day called Elizabeth to her office for a chat.

It was not easy to get the truth out of Elizabeth in the beginning. But with constant counseling, warmth and great care that Sr. Boni exhibited, Elizabeth finally revealed that she was pregnant and desperate with anxiety. She was scared of dropping out of school but most of all, how could she face her auntie and her other relatives with this bitter truth?

Sr. Boni decided to accompany Elizabeth to her home to face her auntie in person. Through long discussions, Elizabeth and her auntie came to accept the situation, and Sr. Boni promised that after Elizabeth had delivered and nursed her child to a stage where the baby could be left at home in some other person’s care, Elizabeth would be allowed in school. Hope returned to Elizabeth’s life, only to be challenged. At a pre-natal visit, Elizabeth discovered that she was HIV positive. Blown away by this reality, she decided to keep her status a secret. One day, Elizabeth’s auntie found Elizabeth’s pre-natal health card and noticed a sign that made her suspicious. After taking the card to some health personnel, the aunt understood. Upset and angry, the woman forced Elizabeth to leave her home.

With no one else to turn to but Sr. Boni, Elizabeth soon appeared at the school’s doors. Sr. Boni felt at a loss in front of Elizabeth’s circumstances, so she called upon AVSI for support. AVSI staff knew immediately where to turn, and linked Elizabeth up with a professional counselor, Ms. Rose Busingye, the manager of the Meeting Point International (MPI) in Kampala, another local partner of AVSI’s OVC program. Feeling an immediate and reassuring sense of trust, Elizabeth immediately opened her heart to Rose and told her everything about her life.

Soon thereafter in one of their community fellowship events, Rose discussed the problem facing Elizabeth with her clients, the women of Kireka’s Acholi Quarter, a slum in Kampala where she works. The Kireka women instantly agreed to welcome the two of them into their community and to care for them together. One lady, an HIV positive woman named Josephine, personally invited Elizabeth and her new born baby into her house where she lives with her husband and eight children. Josephine wants to ensure that Elizabeth has the chance to continue her education, finish school and have an opportunity to care for her child and other people in the society. Elizabeth, now 17 years old, is a hard-working student in class S3 at St. Noa Secondary Boarding School in Kampala, hoping to secure a bright future for her child and to repay the kindness of the ladies of Kireka, and especially Josephine and her family. Her little daughter, almost 2 years old, lives with this new family where she is cared for with love. Every three months, Josephine visits Elizabeth in the school and brings her food and some pocket money, earned through her new small jewelry business and added to by contributions from the other HIV positive ladies in her fellowship at MPI.

Lessons learned

Elizabeth could have easily become a story of lost potential if she had been overlooked and allowed to drop-out of the OVC program which was supporting her secondary school attendance in Jinja. The present health and future prospects for herself and her child are strong and bright because of the concern and attention given by the teachers and administrators at her first school. In the first two years of the OVC program, AVSI has been working closely with local partner organizations, which include schools like Mother Kevin Secondary School in Jinja, to help the staff understand the importance of looking at each student holistically and of incorporating mechanisms to take note of, reflect upon, and communicate concerns about students in the proper fashion. Regional partner meetings have allowed for networking among service providers which breakdown feelings of isolation and build a sense of togetherness in addressing the needs of the most vulnerable children and youth.

This story shows that AVSI’s support to Sr. Boni, as a local partner counterpart, was clearly more than just financial. In Uganda, AVSI links together a wide range of organizations with different missions, capacities and localities that together formed a safety net capable of catching Elizabeth and her child. Yet even the strongest institutional relationships and most refined processes will never take the place of real people with their hearts open to seeing the needs of another.

The most inspiring aspect of this story does not even lie in what AVSI and her partners were able to do for Elizabeth directly. The generosity and friendship extended gratuitously to Elizabeth by the women members of Meeting Point International is the most impressive sign that beauty, community and charity are still possible despite the poverty and disease that marks everyday for many Ugandans.