28 June 2004
Nairobi — Children at the weekend emotionally narrated the plight of fellow children infected and affected by the killer disease.
They moved their attentive adult audience as they told of the stigma and discrimination against the more than one million children orphaned by Aids.
Speaking at Nairobi's Central Park on Saturday at a function organised by the Kenya Aids NGOs Consortium (Kanco) and a donor NGO, the UK-based Comic Relief, a Standard Eight pupil, Master Dishon Wagura said: "When parents or caregivers fall sick and die, a child's life often falls apart."
Children whose parent or guardian were infected or died from Aids, they went on, were often forced to fend for themselves, said Wagura, who is a student at Bryne Academy.
"Most of the children are then forced to drop out of school. Girls are especially forced to leave school to assist with essential domestic duties, including caring for the sick and their siblings," he said.
Shalom Rono, 13, who is a Standard Eight pupil at Nairobi South Primary School pleaded with the society to help children orphaned by Aids.
"Acceptance is the first step in solving the problem and given a chance, we (children) believe there is a lot we can do in the fight against HIV/Aids," Shalom said in her speech.
Earlier, the children joined adults in a unique event to raise awareness for the Aids orphans. They sung and danced and recited poems that told of the suffering of the children are day in day out subjected to by the society upon losing their parents.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2004 The East African Standard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
