FOCUS! The Girls at Risk on the Streets of Zambia

The Africa KidSAFE program (a PCI-led effort to provide a safety net for Zambia’s vulnerable children) faced challenges in addressing the needs of female street children, specifically, which remains a common obstacle in global efforts to help street children.

This is primarily because of the unique experiences, motives and problems that street-active children face when female, including escalated verbal, physical and sexual abuse, increased vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and other STIs, exclusion, and the turbulence of pregnancy.

This greater trial and tribulation paradoxically makes female street children more resistant to aid from outreach workers and shelters, and there is a higher incidence of female street children leaving the structured care of temporary and permanent shelters. In an effort to revise our approach to increase success rates, the Africa KidSAFE Network has recognized a need to specialize care. To do this, we have increased facilities directed specifically towards female street children, including exclusively female shelters, staffed by female professionals, shelters for new and expecting mothers, and assurance of high-quality care within shelters and for outreach worker training.

These efforts will serve to foster trusting relationships and provide an environment conducive to addressing the emotional, mental and physical needs of female street-active children. The network plans to improve these facilities in close consultation with the girls’ feedback and further research and negotiations are being pursued this quarter to maximize services provided exclusively to girls.

Building Back Better

Earthquake Resistant Housing for Peru’s Rural Families

Nearly a year ago, an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale rocked the Peruvian regions of Pisco, Chincha, Alta, Ica, and Canete, leaving more than 90,000 families without homes. Since then, PCI has been working to create long-term, forward thinking solutions to help people in Peru deal with these kinds of disasters by building earthquake-resistant housing.

In partnership with Food for the Hungry, PCI has convened some of the world’s foremost experts in earthquake resistant building technology, non-governmental organizations, government officials, and international donors to pioneer an effort to help families rebuild with earthquake resistant adobe.

PCI is hosting visits from government officials of surrounding communities and other organizations, in hopes of expanding and developing the program. The vision is to create a local effort based on this technology to ultimately benefit tens of thousands of Peruvians.

Easing Burdens for Orphan Caregivers

Goats Provide Nutrition and Income

Ethiopia has one of the largest populations of persons living with HIV/AIDS in the world and, as the number of children losing parents to HIV/AIDS increases, an enormous burden is placed on extended families to meet the needs of these children.

Lack of food is often a major obstacle to improved health and nutrition, as well as recovery from tuberculosis and other debilitating infections for adults living with HIV/AIDS. For children, the lack of food leads to greater health problems due to weakened immune systems, poor school performance, and diminished quality of life.

With funding from Alternative Gifts International, PCI is providing HIV/AIDS-affected and vulnerable families in Ethiopia with goats and sheep to ease their burdens, help avert their deteriorating nutritional status, and generate income.

Goats are considered optimal for families affected by HIV/AIDS because they are small and can be easily handled by the sick, young, and elderly. The milk from goats is improving the quality of children’s diet and can also be sold for $0.44 US per liter to generate vital income for families. As of June 30, 2008, PCI expected to distribute over 2,500 goats and sheep to 1,700 caretakers of orphaned and vulnerable children.

PCI is Changing Lives

Project Concern International’s work is making the most critical of impacts: changing lives for people living in poverty around the world. Reducing maternal mortality in high-risk areas of Latin America, providing goats as a source of income and nutrition for the caregivers of AIDS orphans in Ethiopia, and offering women in India the means to start their own business are just some of the ways PCI is ensuring people rise above the debilitating circumstances of poverty and disease.

The heart of PCI is change – lasting change, self-empowered change. Our goal is to help communities and individuals become stronger and self-assured and to provide people with the means and tools to create the transformation they want to see in their own lives. There is no exact formula for this kind of work, it requires listening to the needs of each individual community, working together with common vision, and ultimately helping people reach their goals to build a world of health and hope one child, one woman, and one man at a time.

We invite you to take this opportunity to learn more about the individual ways we are reaching people in Asia, Africa, and the Americas – read their stories and share in their success. PCI is proud of the different paths we take to assist people in obtaining better health and personal empowerment throughout each part of their lives and say thank you to all who are helping support our mission.

Read more in Changing Lives, PCI’s enewsletter >>>

Sexual Violence and HIV/AIDS

By John Berman, PCI's Senior Director for HIV/AIDS Policy & Program Development

When we think about HIV/AIDS, does rape come to mind? If it doesn’t it should.

Getting infected with HIV is closely linked with sexual violence. It’s inseparable. And in places like South Africa, where up to a third of women first have sex as the result of rape or other forms of coercion, it’s driving the epidemic.

In several ways.

First, every act of forced sex is an additional, unplanned risk of infection.

Second, a recent study from South Africa showed that men who commit violent acts are 50% more likely to be HIV positive than those who are not violent.

Third, you can be sure when a woman is raped, a condom is rarely involved. She’s exposed.
Fourth, pervasive level of sexual violence lead to situations where women do not feel safe, let alone empowered, to say no to a man’s advances.

So if there are all these linkages between sexual violence and HIV infection, why don’t we hear more about it? Why don’t we do more about it? Part of the answer is that sexual violence is often seen more as a social issue, or perhaps a criminal issue, than the health issue. As a result, “health” programs draw an artificial line about what can and cannot be done.

That has to change.

Health programs need to address underlying social factors that drive the HIV epidemic. Sexual violence, and gender inequity should be right up there at the top. We could do this by helping to mobilize communities to change destructive social norms such as pervasive sexual violence. We’ve got to work with people everywhere – men and women - to bring an end to the violence. It’s the only way we’ll ever really stop the epidemic.

Water Is Life: A Glimpse of Life for Martha in Tanzania

Story provided by PCI/Tanzania staff

A woman named “Martha” in Bubu village of Babati District described how she spent five hours per day, from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., drawing water from the river bed, competing with cattle owners and other women, in order to get four buckets of water per day (20 liters each). The women in Bubu village have formed a group to promote the development of their community, but Martha and the others find it very difficult to achieve results with this group because of the amount of time spent on collecting water. Martha shared that if she had a water point nearby, she and other women would have time to dedicate to working in this group. With more time, Martha said she would begin growing and selling vegetables. And if she were able to generate money this way, she said it would help her improve her house and her children’s education. When asked how she chooses between collecting water and selling vegetables, Martha simply responded “Water is life.”

Martha went on to describe how children help in water collection, primarily in the evenings and on weekends. But collecting water in the evenings is dangerous due to hyenas, and it negatively affects their school work. Even the teacher’s work is negatively impacted by the lack of water, as she too needs to spend hours collecting water for herself.

Standing in queues and carrying water back and forth to the house for five hours per day can create a lot of tension. Martha said that improving access to water would improve harmony in the community, as the tension over water during the dry season results in fighting and hatred.

Martha finished saying that if this [PCI’s] project becomes a reality, the improved access to safe water will have a positive impact on all these aspects of her life.

What Aceh Has Taught Me
By Allison Zelkowitz, PCI Staff in Banda Aceh

The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami killed nearly 167,000 people in Aceh alone. Since that time, hundreds of international organizations have worked to repair the devastation and help the survivors rebuild their lives.

Much has been written about reconstruction progress and the impact of international aid on communities in Aceh. Thus, I’ve decided to talk about Aceh’s impact on me, and the simple but important lesson Aceh has taught me: we can recover from anything.

As a Communications Officer, part of my job has been to interview and write stories about people involved in PCI’s livelihood, health, water, and sanitation projects. One of the questions I always ask is, “What happened to you when the tsunami hit?” Every person I’ve interviewed has had an incredible story to tell, and each has told it calmly, without self-pity. Some were knocked unconscious by the terrible wave, carried for miles, and awoke in a tree or on a hill. Others just barely escaped the tsunami’s force, running for their lives and climbing onto rooftops. Each of them was an exception, one of a small group of survivors—in many villages, sixty to eighty percent of the inhabitants were killed.

Everyone in Aceh has lost family members, friends, and neighbors. I’ve spoken to mothers who had their infants dragged from their arms, grandfathers who outlived their grandsons, and children who, in a few short minutes, became orphans.

I remember the day I truly realized the strength of the human spirit. It was a Sunday, and I was sitting on the beach near Banda Aceh, the same stretch of pristine sand where, three years ago, thousands had perished. I’d come to the ocean because I needed to think, to mull over a personal problem that was weighing on my mind. While gazing at the water, I noticed a middle-aged man playing with a toddler on the beach. A few minutes later, he walked over and sat next to me, setting the little girl in his lap. He explained that she was a child from his second marriage—his first wife, and all four children, had died in the tsunami.

My own problems never seemed smaller.

Encounters like this are a common occurrence in Aceh. As the rehabilitation phase nears completion, I continue to feel blessed that I’ve had the opportunity to meet these resilient people. Although they have suffered incomprehensible losses, they are rebuilding their lives with courage, determination, and dignity. Their strength is an inspiration.