Life skills for young orphans

Ms. Okumu works with a Kenyan nongovernmental organization called Kibera Community Self Help Project (KCSHP), which operates in one of Nairobi's large slums.

Like a growing number of NGOs across the continent, KCSHP provides services for AIDS orphans and helps them stay together in family units.

The agency has set up a free school for these orphans, and offers counseling, healthcare, and classes in sewing and woodwork, for instance.

Volunteers follow the youngest orphans home to make sure they bathe and eat, and support groups are offered for the older orphans.

"We train them in self-reliance so they know they have to look after themselves; they know there is no one else who will do it," says Caroline Omondi, head of the KCSHP orphans program, who was orphaned by AIDS herself.

Staying together as a family is not easy, and it is usually the eldest child who has to sacrifice for the other children. Evrline, for example, dropped out of school to work, enabling her younger sisters to stay in school.

Her day now begins at 6 a.m., when she goes to her family's small plot of land to collect beans and corn. After sweeping the hut, she prepares tea for her sisters and porridge for her mother. She bathes everyone and dresses them before setting out to sell her sugar cane.

In the evening she prepares supper, and, with no electricity and no money to buy paraffin for the lamp, she puts everyone to bed by 7:30.

CCF provides medicine and ointments for her mother. Evrline's dainty hands are too small for the sterilized plastic gloves provided by CCF. Strapping them on with rubber bands, she talks about what it's like taking care of her family.

"I was sad to leave school," she admits. "There, I had friends. I am happy to help my family, but I wish I could go to school. I wish I had friends."

Moses Ochieng lives a few miles down the road from Evrline. He is a 16-year-old epileptic and responsible for his family of five.

Like Everline, Moses rises at 6 every morning to sweep the hut and fetch firewood. There is, however, nothing to cook at his house. The siblings go without breakfast and eat porridge for lunch. During the day, Moses puts plastic containers out in the yard, in the hope of catching rainwater.

Counselors come visit weekly, bringing beans and oil, and money for school fees.

"I have nothing here," he says, speaking with effort as he tugs at the loose threads in his oversize red wool sweater. "But I love my brothers and sisters, and my counselor told me to hold on tight to them and help them.

"I am happy about that," he adds. "I would have nothing two times over if I were not with them."

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