Alfred Byenkya
29 June 2008
Kampala — IVAN Birunda, a 12-year-old orphan living in the slums of Katwe in Kampala, lost his father to Aids in 2002. After the death of his father, his lifestyle deteriorated and he could not get the basic necessities of life, so he dropped out of school.
"However, a local NGO, which looks after orphans sponsored me to go back to school," Birunda narrates.
But he says he wants to pursue football as a career because he does not have hope of going for further studies after primary school.
On June 16, thousands of orphans converged at the Pan African Square in Kampala to mark the Day of the African Child.
The day is in honour of South African children who were killed for protesting the inferior quality of education in 1976.
Juliet Arukudo, a pupil at Kibuye Primary School, narrated the problems children go through. "The African child is faced with more violence.
Many girls my age are raped, abused and molested, exposing them to HIV/Aids," she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
Sarah Kakande, a social worker in Kampala, says she was facing challenges raising eight orphans whose parents passed away due to HIV/Aids.
"I have tried to get them sponsors, in vain," says Kakande.
Josephine Wasswa of the Uganda Child Rights Centre in Makindye says: "Children are left in misery after their parents pass away. I know of a family which was headed by a single mother living with HIV.
After her death, the orphans dropped out of school and resorted to child labour."
Regina Bafaki, the executive director of ARCFODR, a non-governmental organisation based in Bukoto, says it is still a challenge to tell to a child that he or she is HIV-positive.
"In most cases, these children do not know how the virus is transmitted."
Bafaki says orphans have faced a problem of stigmatisation in the communities they live in.
Dr. Margaret Mungherera, a consultant at Mulago Hospital, encourages societies to support children living with HIV, saying they had a future. "I know many children who were born with HIV, but are living normally.
Some are even in higher institutions of learning," she said. According to the Uganda National Household Survey for 2005/06, Uganda has 1,000,000 AIDS orphans, 110,000 of whom are HIV positive.
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