According to current estimates, over 600,000 South African children have been orphaned due to AIDS and the number is on the rise. The children that Mama Carol cares for all live in child-headed households.
Mama Carol's organisation, Ikageng Itireleng, provides basic supplies such as food, clothing, school fees, transportation, water and electricity to the children as well as love, care, mentoring and life skills. The organisation is unique in that it tries to preserve the family unit by keeping siblings together in their homes.
Carol started Ikageng Itireleng in 2000, when she came into contact with AIDS orphans in Soweto as a community worker. “I met a group of siblings who had no electricity and could not go to school because they had no money for school fees. The oldest child, a 13-year-old, was caregiver to their mother who had AIDS. The father was dead and their relatives didn’t want to know.”
After helping the orphans, Carol got phone calls from many more children in the same situation. She now cares for 1,731 children in more than 200 homes in Soweto. “It can be challenging for me as I have to be there for them all the time, but I have totally committed myself to these children,” she says.
Sweden is supporting Ikageng Itireleng through the AIDS Consortium, a South African organisation with over 1,000 affiliates.
> Read more about Swedish-South African cooperation in HIV and AIDS