It is estimated that across Africa there are 25 million people living with HIV, two million AIDS-related deaths each year and over 12 million children orphaned by AIDS.  In many African countries, AIDS has brought healthcare systems to the brink of collapse and had a major impact on education, industry, agriculture, transport, and the economy in general.

In Kenya and Uganda, where Advantage Africa works, it is estimated that 6.7% and 4.1% of adults respectively are HIV positive.  In Uganda, this means that nearly half a million people are infected, but experience there provides hope for the rest of the continent that it is possible to turn the tide of the epidemic; Uganda's prevalence rate of 15% in the early 1990s was transformed by political will and well planned public education.

HIV infection brings much personal suffering but also threatens to devastate whole communities and erode the progress African countries have made in increasing life expectancy, school enrolment and economic productivity.  In communities like Obambo, western Kenya, there is rarely a weekend that goes by without a funeral that leaves a family mourning the death of a loved one and having to cope with the greater poverty that such a loss usually brings.  The challenge there, as in so many African communities, is to bring health care, support and solidarity to a rising number of people with HIV-related illness, reduce the number of new infections through protective measures, and care for the orphans and survivors who are left.

Advantage Africa’s work in Obambo includes awareness raising about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted and how it can be prevented based around the ‘ABC’ strategy of Abstinence, Be Faithful and Condoms.  To this has recently been added the ‘D’ of Discover Your Status, through a voluntary counselling and testing scheme begun in partnership with Obambo church.  We are also supporting people living with AIDS to access safe water, nutritious food and good quality healthcare.  In Nakuru, Kenya and various locations of Uganda our work extends to caring for children orphaned by AIDS; we also aim to support our partner organisations in helping people living with AIDS to access antiretroviral treatment. 

Advantage Africa’s focus on people who are doubly disadvantaged by poverty and stigma, means we place a particular emphasis on the stigma and discrimination related to HIV/AIDS.  People living with AIDS are often regarded as shameful, morally irresponsible, or cursed.  This can fuel anxiety and prejudice and cause them to be excluded from their communities, denied basic services and even rejected by their own families.  Mistakenly perceived as the main transmitters of sexually transmitted diseases and disadvantaged by traditional beliefs about sex and blood, women often suffer most from stigma.  Advantage Africa’s partner in Uganda, the Single Parents’ Association of Uganda (SPAU) has many women members who have been ostracised in this way following the death of their husbands and denied access to property and employment as a result. 

HIV/AIDS does not only result in discrimination and repression.  Advantage Africa’s partnerships with inspirational people show that the epidemic also triggers responses of compassion, solidarity and support, bringing out the best in people, their families and communities.  In Obambo for example, Jack and Selline Okoth are caring for twenty children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, and in Uganda Paul Lwanga established SPAU to advance the rights of hundreds of widows disadvantaged by poverty and HIV/AIDS. 

For as long as HIV/AIDS presents so many challenges, Advantage Africa will continue to support the work of inspirational people like Jack, Selline and Paul to reduce its spread and overcome the suffering and poverty it causes.

For sources of more information about HIV/AIDS and development please visit our links page.