Healthlink Worldwide

Small project, big impact: Activities in 2005

Having completed its second year the ‘Strengthening support for orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV and AIDS in Kaduna, Nigeria’ project has been making huge progress to help families affected by HIV and AIDS in northern Nigeria.

The project work, which has been planned and implemented by Healthlink Worldwide and the community-based organisation Mothers’ Welfare Group (MWG), has included a wide range of activities. The project has offered new and innovative ways of working with children and has been instrumental in forging new ways of communicating for all those involved.

Talking heads
Encouraging communication between parents and children on sensitive issues has been, at times, challenging for MWG. In 2005, four parent-children meetings were organised which, after overcoming some reluctance for men, women and children to sit together, proved to be an effective way to address HIV and AIDS issues and encourage honest and respectful dialogue. Ideas for making the meetings relaxed and informal included organising a party for children, mothers and guardians where parents could share their experiences with their children without feeling self-conscious.

Links with the International Memory Project (IMP) were established and staff from MWG attended IMP training in Uganda. The creation of memory books by mothers has been a vital aspect of improving communication in families. The books help children to remember their parents, and provide mothers with a sense that they are leaving something tangible behind. A support group for women with HIV and AIDS called ‘Women of Hope’ provided a forum for women to meet and share their experiences, gain strength, hope and support, which has a positive effect on many levels.

Case study
Amina died leaving memory books for each of her children, in which she mentioned the name of an uncle for the children to contact if they needed help. Two months after Amina’s death the uncle visited. When he saw the memory book he was moved to tears. The reason, he said, was that when he saw his name written in the book he realised he had been running away from his responsibilities for too long. At that point he decided to take on his commitments towards his family.

Dance, shout and sing
MWG uses music, drama and dance activities for awareness raising. In particular the initiative called ‘Dance and Shout’, which uses music to entertain and inform, proved to be popular.

A tour of 17 districts in northern Nigeria was very well received. Over 700 people participated in the programme in each of the districts, the majority youth and children.

Drama activities were organised in four different areas, and had an impact on communities and changed attitudes. Taking part improves confidence and self-esteem in the children. They feel respected and listened to by adults, which is not so common in the Nigerian cultural context. The topics for various drama performances included:

• Fear of witchcraft
• The marginalisation and stigmatisation of orphans
• The role of the church, myths and sensitising communities about HIV
• What happens if you lose everyone and become the head of your family?

Safe places
Children’s clubs and support camps have helped identify the social, emotional, physical and spiritual needs of children living with or affected by HIV and AIDS. The safe areas offer an ideal setting for children to understand their problems and to work out solutions by communicating with caring older children and adults. Children involved in the clubs and camps have become more resilient and confident, which helps them to cope with their situation.

Building capacity - resource centre development
MWG is seen by other organisations in Nigeria as a centre of information on Orphaned and Vulnerable Children's (OVC) issues. An assessment of their existing resource centre revealed a need for a more organised centre where information resources could be easily accessed. Healthlink Worldwide organised a resource centre training in September 2005 for MWG and organisations that they network with. The workshop, based on the popular Resource Centre Manual (see the Source website for more information), brought new skills to the organisations involved. One participant said: “My expectations were surpassed. I learned more than expected, mostly from the discussions that arose from the exercises based on the experiences of participants.”

Educational growth
MWG runs a vocational school and this year saw 45 vulnerable rural children enrolled in a variety of classes, including carpentry, bicycle and motor-bike repair, tailoring, catering, and farming as well as basic literacy. The literacy classes are important as they allow the children to gain their school leavers certificates, an important document in Nigeria.

As part of their agricultural courses the children have a large farm on which they cultivated crops such as maize, potatoes, soya-beans and fruit. The crops harvested have been used to feed other orphans in their community. This is an achievement the children are proud of.

Case study
An achievement MWG is proud of is that a group of children, who spent time at an educational farm at Kadi, were confident at the end of their stay to consider the centre ‘their home’; they did not want to return to the original vocational school centre. As one MWG staff commented: “I could not believe these same children who came to us silent, scared and weeping were actually able to tell us what is best for them.” The children are now staying permanently at the centre.

Looking to the future
The ‘Supporting orphans and vulnerable children’ project began on a small-scale, and yet it has been instrumental in opening up areas of work with children and their families.

The project has raised the profile of MWG as one of the organisations that is making a difference in the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in Nigeria. MWG is seen as the entry point of memory work in Nigeria.

The year hasn’t been without its challenges and lessons learned include:

• The influence of culture and tradition on project implementation
• The need to ensure activities are appropriate to peoples needs (when people are fighting for survival)
• The effectiveness of camp settings, where people are less distracted by day-to-day activities
• The popularity of the drama activities, which engage communities and have inspired other youth groups
• The importance of counselling for families
• The specific requirements of OVCs when integrated into schools with non-OVCs
• The existence of strong stigma towards OVCs
• The need to dedicate a large amount of time to the emotional experience of writing memory books.

AS MWG continues to grow capacity development becomes more important. In 2006 identifying and working with specific areas will be the focus of Healthlink Worldwide’s work with MWG.