Keep a Child Alive

Day 18 - Tendai Shishange : A Sister’s Sacrifice

Before AIDS, there was no word for orphan in Africa. Now, there are more than 16 million worldwide.

We live in a world where 16.6 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, 15 million in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. Keep a Child Alive, founded as an urgent response to access AIDS treatment to the poor, increasingly finds itself responding to the epidemic of orphaned and vulnerable children whose parents could not be saved in time.

In Africa, an entire generation of children has grown into adulthood without the love, care and protection of their parents. AIDS has decimated the extended family system: children have been robbed of their parents, and the elderly left with a generation of grandchildren to raise in their old age.

South Africa is a country full of orphans - 1.9 million orphans. One thousand people die from AIDS every day in South Africa alone, creating hundreds of new orphans who are left to raise themselves and their siblings in child-headed households.  Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry in Soweto provides for all the basic needs of these children relieving the pressure on older children who, having lost their parents to AIDS, are forced to take on adult roles.  It is an uphill battle as every family that Ikageng succeeds in enabling to sustain themselves, AIDS creates new orphan families in Soweto in need of Ikageng’s love and support.

Tendai’s, who at age 17, cares for her younger brothers ages 15, 12 and 7, and her own 2-year-old son. The children live together in a tin shack in the outskirts of Soweto, without electricity or running water. They lost their mother to AIDS four years ago, and Tendai has been taking care of her family ever since. They depend on Ikageng fully for food, education, clothing, medical care and support services to help them overcome the tragedy they’ve experienced. Keep a Child Alive met Tendai and her family last year, and despite their devastating circumstances we found them in, never once did they complain, but rather greeted our team warmly with huge smiles. The resilience of Tendai’s family was inspiring, but left our team with an overwhelming reminder of how much work remains to be done.

Tendai and her family, KCA grantees in South Africa and their story is another reason why we do what we do at Keep a Child Alive. Text BUYLIFE to 90999 to give $10 to help us continue these daily inspirational stories of hope, love and strength.

See all of our Daily Inspirations.