The Big Picture
Photo: Marcus Perkins/Tearfund
HIV and AIDS are responsible for millions of deaths each year. But why are we telling you?
Because the impact of this pandemic far outstretches the numbers of graves it creates: it impacts the living too. In short, it’s something we must continue to learn about and act on so we can see this disease and all its effects wiped away for good. As students you have the potential to change this situation.
Aside from the graves and the grief, these deaths leave behind an increasing number of children. With no one to look after them many must struggle for their own survival, forming their own child-headed households (which we will call CHH). Maybe having the run of the house is something you’ve been craving for a while; after all you’re probably thriving on making your own decisions in your world of student freedom.
But what if overnight you became responsible for as many as six other siblings? What if education wasn’t accessible and your parents (now dead) couldn’t bail you out? Without adults around, the weight of responsibility – for everything from education to income, food to safety – rests on their own, undersized shoulders.
We cannot bring back their parents or fix the past, but we can do something about the present and we can help provide for a better future.
You can make a difference
By fundraising for Tearfund, you can give local churches the money they need to help orphans eat nutritious food and go to school regularly.
Photo: Marcus Perkins/Tearfund
The church may not always seem like the secret hope the world has been waiting for, especially in the face of the global AIDS crisis, but for individual children carrying burdens beyond their years, the church can be a miraculous lifeline.
By praying and raising money from your front room, you can be part of the solution for children affected by AIDS – part of a miracle, even – as the global church unites across the continents to be the life-changing hope it was always supposed to be. Even in the crisis caused by HIV.
For ideas for hosting your own Front room Fundraiser click here