Children of HIV+ve Parents= Island of Joy!

Birthday celebration at S.I.P.--a Home dedicated to children of HIV+ve parents

This post is an entry for ISB iDiya for Indichange contest and written to raise funds for Sevai Karangal, a Chennai-based NGO that collaborates with 16 children homes in the city to make the lives of children sweeter and joyful.

  

I don’t think I will ever recover from what she told me. Earlier that evening I met this lovely girl, with dark skin and tresses darker than the night sky and asked her if she was tense about her tenth standard board exams. She had looked up at me, full gaze and said: “Akka, we don’t know how long we will live. It is enough if we can study.”

New Year Celebration at S.I.P. Home

She is an HIV+ve teen, one amongst the 34 children in a home set up by South India Positive Network to care for children of HIV-infected parents in Chennai. No, all the children in the home are not HIV infected, about 27 of them are. But all are born to parents with similar conditions who have been abandoned due to inability to care.

Children are children and so are teens. Naughty, each unique, each with special characteristics, each with their own tantrums—just children and just teens. But children here are more touchy and feely than kids in other homes. They hug you, hold you, ask to feed you. Almost as if they are overcompensating for that subtle sense that they are stigmatised in the society, that their touch is not exactly welcome.

Sevai Karangal volunteer with the kids

Thilak, one of the coordinators for Sevai Karangal, explains that volunteers from his group deliberately play with the kids so that they realize that they are in most ways similar to other kids. He says kids perceive that and so tend to be more closer to volunteers from his group than when strangers approach.

Tutions in progress, courtesy volunteer of Sevai Karangal

 Sevai Karangal, is a completely volunteer run NGO that has been working closely with S.I.P. home for the last three years during which almost 500 volunteers have visited the home. The NGO raises money for the homes based on needs assessment. They also serve as a channel for Chennaites who want to celebrate important occasions in a meaningful way. Birthdays, anniversaries, festival days are celebrated in the home by sponsoring a dinner or a full day’s meal or sometimes by donating an amount for various necessities in the home.

South India Positive Network was set up by transgendered activist Noori, who is also one of Tamil Nadu’s earliest patient to be diagnosed with HIV. The network works with HIV patients and their family to provide humane care, social support and helps to remove social stigma associated with the disease.

Math Workshop at S.I.P. Home

Children in the home have a normal routine—wake up, breakfast, school, play, homework, dinner and sleep. But they have to take immune-boosting medicines in the morning and evening. Once a month they have to go in to receive antiretrovirals.

The life expectancy of the children is variable and unpredictable. It depends on the inherent strength of the child as well as the environment. Death hangs a bit low in these homes. But it is important to note that Noori, the founder of the home has survived HIV for the last 22 years and is still hale and hearty.

One important point—I noticed kids in the home were rationed chocolates. Being a chocoholic, I was surprised since we had several to spare and I had an urge to pamper the kids. I later learnt that HIV-infected people cannot consume chocolate as the chemicals in it negatively impact the effect of the antiretroviral drugs the kids consume. I have had a hard time consuming chocolate after that day.

Each one of us suffer.  And each one of us deals with it in our own way. In SIP home, there is an island of joy in which children cope and make sense of their disjointed and unpredictable world in their own child-like way. So the lovely dark girl with tresses darker than the night sky asked me—Akka, will you come for my birthday? Last year no one came. I don’t want a cake. Can you get me some earrings instead?

Will you?

All photos courtesy: Volunteers of Sevai Karangal