Street children and family strengthening in Lesotho

A granny-headed family

This grandmother is looking after 4 children (two sets of siblings from two of her daughters) at Maseru, Lesotho. The family is supported by the family strengthening programme with food packages, educational support and children’s clothing. The families self sustainability is build through the provision of seedlings and fertilizers which the grandmother cultivates to produce vegetables for their own use as well as for income generation.

The family gets emotional support through the regular visit of a community volunteer who forms also the link to the community committee which is ultimately responsible to manage the support programme.

SOS Lesotho has formed a partnership with “Habitat for Humanity”, an international organisation whose mission is to provide housing and shelter.

To up-lift the housing situation of this family, “Habitat for Humanity” is going to build two new houses on this property. One house for each set of siblings. Landownership is a crucial requirement to ensure the security of the children’s inheritance.

Terminally-ill parent headed household

Since the father has passed away, the mother is living with her three children in this house. The family strengthening programme provides material assistance as well as a lot of psychosocial support through the community volunteer who visits regularly. The volunteer forms part of the community committee which is ultimately responsible to manage the support programme. The volunteers are responsible community members that are committed to bring about change to the situation of families affected by HIV/AIDS.

This mother has been encouraged to get to know her HIV status. Since she knows her HIV+ status, she has learned to live positively  and is currently on “immune-booster treatment”. If her CD4+ count require for ARV treatment, she will be linked-up with the government funded ARV programme.  The food garden helps to build the self-sustainability of the family. She is also a member of the PLWA support group which currently has 10 members. The support group has started a sewing and knitting project for income generation. 2 support group members are good at sewing and three others are good at knitting, so they train their fellow members.