Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

South Africa's

OVC Crisis

The AIDS epidemic is decimating South Africa’s “middle generation." Over the next few years millions of children will be orphaned or made vulnerable (OVC) in South Africa which, despite being the most industrialized nation on the African continent, has the largest number of infected people in the world at nearly 5.7 million.

The average adult infection rate is almost 20%. In poorer regions, the rate is nearly 50%. South Africa had 1.5 million AIDS orphans in 2007. If the trend of 400,000 AIDS deaths per year continues, by 2015 the number of orphans will have reached 5 million.

South Africa’s national leaders have been extremely slow in responding effectively to HIV/AIDS. As a result, there is still great stigma attached to HIV/AIDS which discourages people from learning their status or being treated once they are sick. While anti-retroviral drugs are available in South Africa, many who know their HIV status or are ill do not access them because of the stigma.  The poor state of South Africa's healthcare system and a chronic lack of funding also contribute to people not receiving treatment.

In 2010, South African President Jacob Zuma launched a major HIV testing and counseling campaign that provides a glimmer of hope for turning the tide on HIV/AIDS in South Africa.  The campaign's goal is to reduce the infection rate by 50% by June 2011. It is important to note, however, that even when HIV prevalence stabilizes or begins to decline, the number of OVCs will continue to grow for a number of years, reflecting the time lag between HIV infection and death.

Added to the AIDS epidemic, South Africa’s relatively recent emergence as a democratic society and its continuing efforts to reverse the effects of the racial discrimination system known as Apartheid are also factors in the OVC crisis.  While extraordinary social  strides have been made since 1994, the legacy of Apartheid is still evident in South Africa. Black and coloured citizens still live largely in segregated townships and in poverty. Many structural barriers to economic development, education and healthcare are still in place - creating an "economic apartheid."  During the Apartheid era, many families migrated from the rural areas in the Eastern Cape to Cape Town in search of work and are now separated from their extended families making it difficult and expensive to locate surviving family members when a child is abandoned or orphaned. 

Finally, with poverty as a profound stressor on families, it is common to find high prevalance of alcohol and drug abuse, and physical and sexual abuse in the townships. Many children are being removed from kinship care and placed in residential care, either temporarily or permanently, to secure their safety. Most of the OVC-serving agencies Tremendous Hearts visited in 2007 reported that at least half of their children had been removed from their homes for abuse or neglect.

The good news is that there are many dedicated South Africans and local agencies doing very good work in response to this “perfect storm” but more resources are needed to ensure that OVCs receive proper care. Tremendous Hearts aspires to help by providing skilled volunteers at no charge to the agencies to help them meet their goals. We hope you will join us in supporting these hard working and compassionate people on the front line of this humanitarian crisis that is unfolding one parent and one child at a time.