Our Valuable Children:

Quality and Sustainability of Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Special Report of the Seminar

Event Summary

In Honor of World AIDS Day 2007, AVSI Foundation will convene a seminar to present and discuss a three-country program supporting 12,000 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Sub-Saharan Africa with funding from the United States’ Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through USAID. This interactive forum will give the floor to program implementers engaged in the day-to-day management and evaluation of an OVC program to discuss the challenges, successes and lessons learned with peers, technical experts and other leaders of the US Government’s effort to respond to the needs of OVC.

The seminar will consist of three sessions which will address some of the most pressing concerns related to OVC programming, drawing on the experience of AVSI’s on-going program and in light of future planning in this area. The presentations and discussions with seminar participants will suggest answers to the following questions:

• How to plan for and achieve sustainability of program impact?
• How to ensure that quality care is delivered to the most vulnerable children, and evaluated for its impact?
• How to understand capacity building of local partner organizations and staff in practice, and how to incorporate this goal into program design and implementation?

The title of the symposium, “Our Valuable Children”, has become the motto of AVSI’s OVC program and reflects AVSI’s method of working which starts from the infinite value of each child and his/her place within a community, rather than from his/her vulnerability in isolation. This affirmation of the positive allows for education towards the fullest potential of the individual and community to take place.