Adikalam - "The Refuge" - AIDS Awareness

Did you know?

5,700,000 people in India have HIV/AIDS. This is the highest number for any country in the world. A large percentage of these are children, and if they were born with HIV they will probably not live beyond the age of seven. It is believed that about 700 women are infected every day..

Now read on...

AIDS is a major problem in the Diocese of Vellore. In the year 2000 few people realised that AIDS existed in this region, now it is a severe medical problem - and also a severe social problem.

People who are suffering with AIDS are turned into outcastes - people wrongly believe that they will be infected by them if they touch them, or even talk to them; they are so afraid that the AIDS sufferers are thrown out of their families or their villages. Sometimes the whole family of an AIDS sufferer will be treated by their neighbours as if they have AIDS too - even when they do not. In Vellore District we know that when some people learnt that they had contracted HIV they committed suicide because they did not want their family to know.

People believe that people who develop AIDS are sinners, but many of them are suffering because of poor medical practices - they may have been given infected blood in a transfusion when they had an operation or been given a vaccination with a dirty needle. Some of the people who are dying of AIDS in Vellore are children who were born with the virus because their mother was already ill. Thousands of innocent children and adults are dying through inadequate medical care and lack of knowledge about how the virus is passed on.

Medical treatment has to be paid for in India. Many of the victims of AIDS are so poor that they cannot afford to pay for treatment, and there are so many of them that need help that the authorities are struggling to subsidise essential treatment. Millions of people live in the Vellore District, but there are very few hospitals where the poorest people can go. One is the large Christian Medical Hospital in Vellore itself, and there are two small hospitals run by the Church at Vandavasi and Ranipet. The Church is doing as much as they can to provide the support and services that the doctors and hospitals do not provide. Pastors, Women's Groups and Youth Groups all hold meetings to inform people about the HIV virus, and to prevent families and friendships falling apart.

These photographs were all taken at Adikalam in Vellore. The aim of this project is to help children who are AIDs orphans or whose parents are affected by HIV. At the moment there are 94 families - 200 children - being helped. Six of the families are Christians, the rest are Hindus.

The photograph on the left was taken at a monthly meeting for AIDs widows (you may also spot some widowers). Of the 94 families being helped by the centre in only 18 of them is the father still alive. Most of the families live within 10 kilometres of Vellore, although some travel as much as 80 kilometres. Six of the families are Christian, the rest are Hindu.

Adikalam is now one of the leading AIDS Centres in the whole of India, and the only one sponsored by the Church.

What do the Christians at Adikalam do to help these people?

To help the mothers:

When a man dies of AIDS his family is left without any income. The mother has to find ways to make money to support her children. and herself. Adikalam gives the women small loans so that they can set up small businesses for themselves. Some ladies make clothes, some mend shoes, others used the money to buy a cow and sell the milk, others cook and sell breakfasts. The lady in the photograph on the right is actually working at the Adikalam Centre - she is making stockingnette which will be turned into support stockings for leprosy patients (in fact the Centre now has a contract to supply the material nationally and can employ 5 of the widows here on their own premises). If the family is able to pay back the loan because their business goes well then the money will be "recycled" and used to help other AIDS widows.

One of the stocking makers, a mother with two children, said: "I felt as if I should die, why should I have such a big problem in my life", but now, with Adikalam's counselling and support, "I am no more thinking about suicide...."

Some of the women train as health educators and go around the villages teaching about HIV/AIDS.

To help the children:

Adikalam also helps the children to go to school and will pay their school fees. The three boys in the second photograph are orphans - they are sent to residential schools where they can live in hostels in term time and then during the holidays they live at Adikalam where they are cared for by the centre's social worker. The oldest boy is top of his class and wanting a career in banking, the other two boys hope to become policemen - one of them is HIV positive. Other children are going on to university courses, and the first set of university graduates have completed their degrees. As well as their fees, Adikalam pays for their school uniform and anything else they need. The schools that the children attend are not told why these pupils have special sponsorship, as it is very probable that teachers and other pupils would refuse to work with them if they knew they came from a family where there was AIDS.

To help in the villages:

The Adikalam Centre is now beginning to work with a group of 10 church congregations in the north of Vellore Diocese to help teach the village peoples about basic health issues. Many village people rely on healing practices that have been handed down for generations - sometimes these can work very well, for example using ginger when you have an upset stomach, - but other ideas are very dangerous, such as when a baby has a bout of diarrohea the mother stops feeding it, and of course the baby dies. Village people will not go to doctors or hospitals with problems like these because tehy cannot afford the medical bills.

Adikalam will act as a training centre, so that eventually they will train a group of people in every village in basic health and hygiene. They are not training them to be health workers or nurses, but simply making sure that in every village there are some people who can offer advice and support when others fall ill. The Women's Fellowship is going to be helping with this programme, and they will especially concentrate on working with mothers, young children and young people. At the moment 10% of the children born in these villages die before they reach the age of five.