Thanks for all your for the comments already posted. In the African culture, all children are for the family. So if I lost a brother with 3 children, with HIV, I would have to look after that family including children and the mother. So generally the point is the Children affected with HIV are a family concern . MFIs can help these children through their guardians or parents .

Just today I talked to a women entrepreneur who lost a sister with 4 children; having seen nobody to help the children, she had take the burden. So MFI can empower guardians, and the children especially those those that are over 15 years can be empowered through MED skills or knowledge or through tools and equipment that can facilitate enterprising activities.

This is one of the challenging areas in dealing with Children affected by HIV & AIDS, or at least supporting them to be able to take care of themselves and their families. I agree with what Kyalibulha said about the African culture of children belonging to the family and to the community, but due to the ramifications of HIV & AIDS, compounded by extreme poverty, unemployment, climate change, etc. that social fabric of society has been terribly affected and we are increasingly seeing child-headed households. This therefore means that there should be ways to help these children to cope with their situations. I was recently in Tanzania where CBOs are really taking the lead in mitigating the impact of the pandemic within the communities as they are implementing various programmes including support for Orphans & Vulnerable Children. One of the good programmes includes training these children in vocational skills like sewing and knitting, and then encouraging them to use these skills to make a living for themselves. For instance, a CBO called Rainbow supports a number of children through the provision of school materials including uniforms, and they utilise the services of the children they trained to supply them with the school uniforms to supply the children being supported by the programme. In this way, Rainbow does not only save costs by not buying from the competitive market, but it also helps fine-tune the vocational and entrepreneurship skills of these children as they are also making money to sustain their families. I thought this was one good initiative. Thank you.

I wish to extend my unalloyed appreciation to the SEEP Network for taking up this iniative and secondly to all those who have contributed in one form or another to ensure that this iniative yields concrete and positive results.

The connection between poverty and HIV/AIDS in Developing countries cannot be overemphasised.

The role microfinance institutions play in the alleviation of poverty in Developing countries cannot also be overemphasised.

If parents are not already affected by HIV/AIDS the incidence in children will be greatly minimised. So i am suggesting that MFIs revise their strategies to reach out to potential HIV/AIDS poor communities as a preventive measure.

Secondly for those children already infected MFIs may want to devise innovative product offerings to better serve this class of children.

To achieve all these, i think that multilateral and bilateral donors, funders, and other international bodies active in this field, should increase their confidence in grassroots MFIs and not only in well established MFIs.

Thanks

Abilabonga

Hi, I am Chintha Munasinghe from Sri Lanka working as the Managing Director of Laymen’s Den (Pvt) Ltd. “Developing livelihoods ammongst communities excluded from the general economic process while operating cost-effectively” is the biggest challenge that many BDS providers are facing with. Need not say that there are many factors contributing to their inability to participate: Health status, impairments, accessibility, social status: cultural practices, gender issues, etc.,,

I have just returned from Butula where HIV/AIDS prevalence is 21.8%, recoreded as the highest in Kenya. With me and team of five conducted an evaluation of an organisation called REEP, based in Butula on their efforts, successes and learning in the process of integrating communities affected by HIV/AIDS into economic development process through MED. REEP with the expert inputs from APT Enterprise Development, UK and SITE, Kenya has developed an approach which is a combination of community based health care programme and an enterprise development programme. It was observed that there are many clients of Micro-finance programme of K-REP. According to them there are many defaltees, who represent about 60% of the loan borrowers and the programme offer credit for adults ready to start an enterprise.

In Butula sub-location itself, there are 10,000 orphans due to HIV/AIDS. REEP support 300 total orphans in their education and food assistance programmes developed in collaboration with different stakeholders. In a situation where many of the child rights are violated, I am not sure how effective it is to start a MF programme for children. But, it will be helpful for youth, provided that they are given with a good business development assistance, to acquire MF to cover their capital. But, it should start from helping them analysing their expenditure patterns; identifying gaps; work out alternatives for filling the gaps (e.g. ventures that supplement their income); experimenting on their business ideas with proper guidance leading to develop business plans… and the last thing to come is the MF.

I am not disagreeing that, in a context where child-headed families are a commonality a need for the development of a livelihoods support programme. In the case of orphans and children responsible for upbringing their families due to lost of parents or their bad health status, it is important for buidling the entrepreneurial mentality amongst them. This will lead them to work out ways to getting rid of their problems. MF can be introduced when they are confident enough to run their ME, so that they can take a loan and further improve their businesses.

REEP has developed an interesting strategy to train and assign their good entrepreneurs/leaders as animators who are able to mobilise other HIV +ve persons providing both emotional support through sharing their personal experiences, and providing business guidance. These animators being based in the community can also monitor defaultees as a commission based MF support service that could contribute to reduction of expenditure on credit officers’ networks, that many organisations follow in the instances where SHG level group guarantee system is not in operation.

Thanks
Regards
Chinthi

I am still skeptic about how Micro finance could help HIV affected children.I have several such cases but MFIs in general turn a blind eye to the social factor.We work in rural areas where we come across all sorts of cases including HIV/AIDS and children with severe disabilities, leprosy affected and so on. I am of the opinion that a seperate set of Micro Finance Institutions with focus on marginalised people should be set up. Present MFIs are catering to the well to do among the poor.Their motive is only profit.Hence we need to transform the MFI movement to include all vulnerable section of the society with much less lending rates etc..The well established MFIs should come forward to support the less fortunate ones also!

Thanks very much everybody for your contributions. Child-headed homes are growing in number in our country at a very alarming rate. Children are forced out of school to do part time work in farms just to fend for themselves.

In the Copperbelt Province for example, the closure of the mines resulted in a lot of parents indulging in drinking bear for lack of things to do. Many children have lost their parents because of the same and are very much struggling in meeting their economical needs.

I strongly thank MEDA for the study that is currently being undertaken in our country, as this will help in finding a way of addressing the economical challenges faced by the vulnerable children especially those affected by HIV/AIDS through micro credit.

Apologies for joining the discussion late. First, I am working in Mozambique,giving advisory services to Micro Finance sector, especially for NGOs and CBOs. I would therefore be quite interested to voluntarily assist the CIDA funded research team, if at all they are still in Mozambique. Whoever is responsible could give them my contacts:Phone number +258 824243661,email address,akaiz1280@yahoo.com.
Second, in contributing to involvement of MFIs in supporting children (or communities) affected by HIV/AIDS; I think this would honestly be a scary call for MFIs. Reckon how much effort most of these institutions are supposed to and normally build in, to ensure they effectively maintain low operational costs. The last idea they need is that which overstretches their ability to deliver quality services, especially for MFIs that have achieved financial or operational self-sufficiency. Perhaps one of the best ways to engage MFIs in such an initiative is to integrate such programs with organizations e.g NGOs,CBOs,Government,etc, that can resolve the social welfare of such children. This is because the predicaments of such children, normally, stretch beyond just financial or entreprenueral cracks. In fact, such children may not even be priorising entreprenuership, even though they need money to carry on. They may just be having the desire to be taken care of (or guardianed).
The other option would be to invest in talent ascertainment and courting, for example children that show interest in small scale business could get their entreprenueral skills improved, but on a striking balance with, at least, basic educational needs. A suitable MFI could then be encouraged to provide services. This way, we ensure there is a stable economic opportunity for the MFI, the levels of portfolio risks are pre-controlled and the children maximise availability of financial services. The point hence is that for an MFI to provide effectively services to such a special group, there is need for other players to mend social-economic challenges.
I would also like coleagues to reckon the existence of informal micro finance services( or methologies), like group savings and loans,rotating savings and credit, etc. These are especially appropriate for provoking social capital.