By Erica James-King, Senior Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
A TRIPARTITE group -- the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the National AIDS Committee (NAC) and the Ministry of Health -- has identified four parishes for a pilot project on a community-based action plan on HIV/AIDS.
The pilot programme, which targets St. James, Portland, St. Catherine and Clarendon, is the major focus of a new thrust to provide support services for families affected by HIV/AIDS, and to bolster awareness on the deadly disease.
Making the disclosure, Laila Ismail Khan, UNICEF Representative in Jamaica, said her organisation would be assisting each of the four parishes with the drafting of a community-based plan of action.
Explaining the rationale for the new thrust, Ms. Khan noted that the pilot project would "strengthen and support community capacities to identify and monitor vulnerable households and to provide for orphans and children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS (OVC's)."
Addressing a workshop at Breezes Montego Bay Hotel last week, she said that "our support to orphans of AIDS and children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS will include working with partners at the community level through the Children Services Division, as well as others involved in the field of social work."
She underscored the need for orphans and children affected by HIV/AIDS to be treated on an equal basis as other children.
Pointing to the problems affecting strategies to counter the disease, the UNICEF official said stigma and discrimination still existed at the community level. She lamented that HIV/AIDS was still regarded as a Health Ministry concern, and has not been integrated as a core development priority.
Also echoing that concern, Hope Ramsay, programme director with the Centre for HIV/AIDS Research and Educational Services, said that during a three-week survey carried out in May, this year, it was revealed that "there are high levels of fragmentation and displacement of children" in cases where one or both parents are infected by HIV/AIDS.
The move to give priority attention to children in Jamaica whose lives have been touched by HIV/AIDS, came amidst reports that an estimated 20,000 Jamaicans are living with HIV and about 50,000 children in Jamaica are made vulnerable or orphaned by the disease.
The Ministry of Health said that to date about 125 Jamaican children have lost one or both parents from HIV/AIDS.
More than 13 million children under the age of 15 worldwide have lost one or both parents to the AIDS epidemic, and the number is expected to double by the year 2010.
Last week's session was the second in a series of regional workshops aimed at sensitising persons who come in contact with children in need of special care and protection on a regular basis. About 100 persons participated in the special forum on OVC's, that saw representatives from the Children's Services Division, the police force, Public Health Department and several non-government organisations, including Jamaica Aids Support.
