CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
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Cameroon |
AIDS
Families devastated; schools and medical facilities overwhelmed
Added to Cameroon’s tragedy of hundreds of thousands of its citizens who’ve died from AIDS, comes that of 270,000 orphaned children. Having lost one or other of their parents or both, these orphans are completely traumatised by their parents’ death. They’re also marked by a disease which has become part of their lives and they’re often reduced to terrible poverty following the death of the head of the family. All this means the traditional extended family is called upon to fill the gap, and the country’s medical and educational systems are becoming overloaded. The problem is particularly serious in some areas of the country where, according to the Minister for Health, 1 child out of 6 has AIDS.
Catherine Bomba Nkolo, Minister for Social Affairs, says it’s a moral duty to find a home, feed, educate and love these children. It’s also an essential element in Cameroon’s future development. She says: «We must make herculean efforts on behalf of these children if we don’t want to lose them. If not, we’re heading for a catastrophe. We live in a society where children don’t go to school and thus can’t get work, even the simplest; where most of the population are in danger of developing antisocial tendencies because of the difficult living conditions. We now have a generation of children-at-risk faced with exploitation and disease, simply because people are not aware of their value».
AIDS orphans have immediate needs -– they must be fed, they must be educated, they must be cherished and loved and cared for through their adolescence and beyond. From 21-22 March 2003, a meeting of The National Committee for Fighting AIDS (CNLS) was held in Yaounde. The meeting was enlarged so as to include the Ministries for Women and Social Affairs, and the NGOs involved in the fight against AIDS. Mrs. Bomba Nkolo said that necessary resources must be provided to help «especially all those whose lives have been devastated by AIDS, in particular, the orphans». She says that the number of AIDS orphans exceeds 300,000, and is increasing all the time.
Strengthening the family
However, in the districts of Yaounde and a number of provinces, the traditional institution which deals with children-at-risk i.e. the extended family, is starting to break down under the double pressure of poverty and disease. Léopold Zekeng, the CNLS‘s national secretary says that the only way to face up to the crisis is to strengthen the family. «There aren’t enough orphanages to deal with these children. We must strengthen the extended family». But an in-depth study, carried out in 2002, shows the practical difficulties involved.
The problem is partly financial. The onslaught of AIDS is at the same time a cause and a consequence of the increase of poverty in Cameroon — partly caused by the IMF‘s insistence that the country’s external debt must be paid off by adopting Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP). These SAPs frequently push families to the brink of despair because they can’t afford basic necessities and prevent the authorities from finding a solution to the orphan crisis. The income per capita was 670 dollars in 2002, and the payment of debt-servicing took in, the same year, a share of the national budget — higher than that allocated to health and education.
For many children, the loss of their parents is synonymous with poverty, the end of schooling and rejection by family and neighbours. In spite of the growing number of deaths, almost half of Cameroon’s orphans live in a dwelling where a relative survives, generally the mother. But the ever-increasing HIV-positive rate as far as married couples are concerned, means that many children lose both their parents quickly and find themselves a burden on their extended family. Approximately 40% of these children are raised by grandparents; 30% by their uncles and aunts.
The consequences can be devastating for families. A 70-year-old woman living in Ngaoundéré, Adamaoua Province, who is caring for four grandchildren, explained to UNICEF: «Ever since these children were brought to me, I’ve been suffering. I’m too old to raise them as they should be. I can’t go to the farm and what food I have won’t last all the year». (UNICEF report on Adamaoua, March 2003).
It used to be unheard of in Cameroon that children became heads of families — now the exception has become the rule. Both the official and traditional legislation regarding inheritance, the system of landed property and medical and educational policies are no longer followed. A young Cameroonian puts it this way: «Both our parents died in 1995. When that happened, members of our family chased us away. That surprised us because, since they are our family, we thought they were going to take care of us». Other children are looked after by their neighbours or are taken in by one or other of Cameroon’s few orphanages. For the remainder, well, there’s always the streets of our cities where the children, completely unsupervised or with no place they can call «home», take to begging or petty crime.
Orphans and children-at-risk? Who should be helped?
In Cameroon. when families do accept responsibility for looking after orphans and children-at-risk, any help available comes mainly from the local community. Ever since HIV/AIDS began to spread across the country almost twenty years ago, hundreds of children’s committees run by religious and community-sponsored organizations; plus many projects designed to care for the sick in their homes have sprung up. The committees offer advice and support for the orphans and their families. The programs are as varied as the communities they serve. But they all tend to help families in two essential ways — with food and education.
In September 2002, the NGOs «International Plan» in Adamaoua sponsored the school fees and new uniforms for orphaned secondary school children. But other pupils didn’t have the wherewithal to buy new clothes. The resentment caused by this assistance, isolated the orphans and created tensions within the community. A similar situation occurred in an extended family where the children taken in charge by an uncle, benefited from advantages to which his own children didn’t have any right.
The UNICEF report notes: «When it’s a question of intervening on the practical level, 75% of orphaned children live below the poverty line, but the same applies to 73% of children who still have their parents. So, it’s serves no useful purpose to differentiate between orphans and other children-at-risk. In fact, to separate them presents serious risks».
The Cameroonian government and civil society associations face similar difficulties when they try to respond to the needs of orphans and children-at-risk. Cameroon’s cash shortage does not enable the authorities to exempt these children from education fees at secondary school level. Consequently, AIDS orphans, lacking financial resources, often give up their schooling. To try to keep the children in school, the local communities resort to three strategies.
The first consists in putting pressure on the local school management committees so that children who are totally without means, can be exempted at least from secondary school registration fees. Such initiatives are frequently successful, but they inevitably place a burden on the education system. – A second strategy consists in collecting funds to pay the orphans’ registration expenses. These bursaries have the advantage of ensuring that the schools remain financially sound, but they often oblige the local communities to initiate and manage income-generating projects. With some exceptions, the local communities often realize they don’t have the ways and means of coming up with the necessary funding. – The third strategy is that of organising free Community schools i.e. schools managed by the local community.
Uncertain future
The Adamaoua Plan renders assistance in an area which has the greatest number of orphans in Cameroon, and is one of the rare programs which enables very young AIDS orphans to receive institutional care. However, whenever possible, the Plan makes it possible for these children to be returned to their local communities when they’re seven, as soon as circumstances allow it.
Dr. Calvin Oyono Etoundi is a CNLS member. He says that the burden of helping these children is increasingly being shouldered by the Cameroonian government, supported by UNICEF and UNAIDS. On a national level, the CNLS coordinates a management committee made up of NGOs, civil society associations, and community service providers. These evaluate the needs, send in technical and material resources where they are needed, and work out orientation strategies in response to the many and varied needs of orphans and children-at-risk.
Other initiatives also try to make better use of Cameroon’s civil society associations’ resources. For a long time, civil society has been faced with the orphans’ crisis. But, in the absence of a substantial increase in financial, technical and human resources, the orphans’ future remains uncertain.
Dr Oyono says: «So many children are traumatised and in despair, having had to look after their mothers who literally have died in their arms. They feel abandoned. Just looking at the youngest, many no older than 4 to 6 years, with their large wondering eyes and soft voices, we wonder what can we possibly do to help this apparently infinite number of children. Local communities do try to gather the children together so that they can spend time together, and share a meal if possible. But all that is problematical. The communities are so overwhelmed by people who are in their last throes, by death itself, by poverty, that there is neither the time nor the interest for the orphans. But how necessary it is! Indeed, sometimes, the situation seems insurmountable».