HEALTH INTERACTIVE WITH DR AMINU MAGASHI

800,000 HIV/AIDS Orphans, UNICEF and USAID  

cphkano@yahoo.co.uk

Then, as the president of a youth based NGO Youth Society for The Prevention Of Infectious Diseases And Social Vices, YOSPIS) in year 2000, I led a team of researchers to determine the number of HIV/AIDS Orphans and their difficulties in kano state with support from UNICEF, D field office, Bauchi, Nigeria. The research covered a period of three-month and involved survey at available government hospitals and follow ups at the community to ascertain the needs of the orphans. Among the needs assessed were health needs (basic and essential health services), educational needs (ability to have the opportunity to attend primary and secondary school)shelter/nutritional needs (opportunity to have access to feeding and sleep under a roof with some degree of comport), community/social support (availability of community structure that support vulnerable children ).    

The research defined HIV orphans or children orphaned by AIDS as children below the age of 18 years who lost one or both parent. At the end of the survey within 3 month, we came up with about 2000 children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and to the best of my knowledge, that was the first co-ordinate attempt by UNICEF and any other development partners in Nigeria to find out about the plight of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The unsigned agreement and understanding between We and UNICEF then , was that, at the end of the research, those children discovered would be assisted with support to actualize their potentials.    

Up till today, I could not fathom and underpin why such support was not provided. By the year 2001 and 2002, UNICEF, Nigeria was busy drafting its new country programme (2002-2007) and to my great surprise the issue of children orphaned by AIDS has being swept under the carpet and replaced by another intervention supporting HIV positive children and unfortunately the state in question (kano) where the said research took place is not even among the pilot states  for the intervention regarding HIV positive children under D field office of UNICEF, the states benefiting currently are Borno and Plateau State.    

By the time it dawned on me that UNICEF was only interested in figures and statistics regarding HIV orphans and to be quoting those figures at the slightest provocation ,  already  I was an ex- president of that youth NGO and of course  the approach and policies of the NGO were amended and modified by the new executive members supposedly for the overall interest of the NGO. Under the auspices of another NGO (Community Health And Research Initiative) we wrote a proposal to address the needs discovered in the research submitted to Development Market Place, An International Competition By World Bank, our proposal reached up to second round but later on dropped due to competent priorities, we were not reluctant and in April, 2002,  we submitted a small version of the Development Market place Proposal to Small Grant Programme of World Bank , Nigeria which is a yearly competition and fortunately our proposal was approved and funded. The project entitled ‘ Togetherness We Can Support Orphans And Vulnerable Children, our approach was to strengthen the capacity of community based organizations through workshops  to support the children and to ensure advocacy to development partners to provide support to the orphans.  We were able to paid advocacy visits and hold meetings with available partners in the state, notable among them, Family Health International, a Senior Level Manager with USAID, Abuja Office, United Nation Development Programme, Bank of the North, UNICEF and some community philanthropists. For now, it is only hope and hope forever for the agencies and the people contacted to provide succor to the children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. It is imperative for the reader to understand where we came from and heading to as far as the issue is an orphan is concern.   In line with the afore-mentioned, I must say that I received with mix feelings  the news that there are 800,000 Nigerian children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and the report was based on a survey in 2003. This Day Newspaper of 13th July 2004 carried the story entailed ‘ 800, 000 Nigerian children orphaned by AIDS. The release signed by the communication officer of UNICEF, Mr Geoffrey Njoku quoting statistics from a report title ‘ children on the brink stated that 5.2 million children lost one or both parents in sub Saharan Africa last year, while by 2010, the region will be home to an estimated 50 million orphaned children. The biennial report release by UNICEF, UNAIDS and USAID gave the latest statistics on historical, current and projected numbers of children under the age of 18 orphaned by AIDS and other causes. Mrs Carol Bellamy, UNICEF Executive Director reportedly said that it is best to keep parents alive and health while assistant administrator of USAID, Dr Anne Peterson reportedly said that the report underscores the critical importance of caring for children affected by AIDS. Also in the same release, the United Nation and many partner organizations have endorsed a framework of action to provide guidance to donor nations and the governments of affected countries to respond to the urgent needs of children affected by HIV/AIDS.    

Looking at the Nigeria ’s HIV profile of about 4 million people living with HIV/AIDS and with only 10,000 people on the list of Federal Government Anti Retroviral Programme and probably, 2000 people under the APIN (AIDS Prevention Initiative In Nigeria) supported by Harvard School Of Public Health, it leaves much to be desired on how we are going to reduce appreciably the mortality rate of HIV and in order words to reduce the number of HIV/AIDS orphans. I argued on many occasion on this page that, the Anti Retroviral Drugs Programme which cater for only 12,000 people need to be decentralized so that states and LGAs must commit resources to be purchasing the drugs for those affected in their localities. This policy reform can only be achieved through a co-ordinated and sustain advocacy by National Action Committee on AIDS, Civil Societies and Development Partners. It is a challenge to all of us to ensure improved policy and legislation and to be channeling resources to communities and raising awareness at all levels through advocacy and social mobilization to create a supportive environment for all affected children. What is needed now is of course not declaration of awesome figures by UNICEF and USAID  and reciting, reviewing and quoting such at every available opportunity as if such is a good omen and story. What is needed is working together to come up with an action plan for the overall survival, protection and development of those vulnerable children.      

Dr Magashi Is the Executive Director Of Community Health and Research Initiative, Kano , Nigeria and can be reached at healthinteractive@hotmail.com