Children's Home

Family Care system:

They are in 4 children’s villages, in 8 hostels, in residential schools and in professional training institutions. Those who are above 13 years are cared for in 7 of our hostels. They are like any other hostels with dormitory system.  They receive their food from our central kitchen where we use steam cooking.
The children below 12 are given special care in a family-care system.  It means a home consists of a foster mother and 7-8 children.  15-20 homes make a Children’s Village. We have 4 such children’s villages. The children should not loose the motherly love at very young age. This system supplements motherly love which they have lost as very young. The children are from various sectors. Among the 936 children who are under our full time care girls are 536 and boys 376.  Among the children HIV infected are 70, HIV affected 128, orphan 165, semi-orphan 522, and poor 225. HIV infected and affected children constitute 128 among the children who are under our care.
The foster mother (who are mostly widows or abandoned by their husband) in a family is in charge of 7-8 children. She takes care of their basic needs like food, stationary and toiletry items, basic inner wears etc. with the money given to them.   She goes to the weekly marketing and procures the necessary things for a week and takes care of the children. There is a manager in each village to supervise these activities.  We do not receive any stipend from the government.

Care for HIV children who are in our care:

Among the four children’s villages one of them is “Sirumalar Children’s Village”.  Here there are 18 families.  Each family is housing 8 children.  For past few years we concentrate on the HIV positive children for they are innocent sufferers, who suffer for no mistake of their own.  In order to give special care and medical attention, all the 70 HIV positive children are put in here with other negative children for the sake of prompt medical attendance.  Among 145 children 90 are positive and the rest negative.   Out of 21 families in the village 7 families are housing infected children together with other children.  Another 126 children are in the hostels in the same premise.
These HIV infected children may or may not have parents (Orphan 30; Semi-orphan 37 and having both parents 3).  They are really orphans in the sense of this term HIV.  Even though they may have both or single parents but it is equivalent to having nobody. They need extra care.  We give preferential care and support to these children in everything we do for them.  While the affected children are treated like any other children except for their emotional side the infected children are treated specially in everyway possible.

In the Children’s Villages 

Emotional care:

1. The administration takes extraordinary care in assigning the family grouping.  The mother who is ever caring for the children is selected to care these children.  All our mothers are carefully selected and well trained and to care for the children and the better among the best mothers are selected to give real motherly love to these infected children.  The children should enjoy every minute of their life and be confident that the life is worth living with all their sickness.
2. The siblings (if they are under 12) are kept in one family. 
3. Parents and relatives are allowed to see the children on second Sundays of the month.  We even provide monthly assistance to some of the parents of these HIV+ children, who come from very far.  Our sole aim is to restore the joy of these children by being able to see their parents every month.  These parents use this assistance for their nutrition and travel to RTU.  While other children are free to go home to meet the parents or relatives almost for a month, the infected children who are on ART are allowed for 10-15 days.  It is due to regular intake of the medicines. 
4. Sense of brotherhood in family and in the village is created.  They have a joy of having a large number of brothers, sisters, friends and aunties.   Their scope of relationship broadly widened in a caring environment.

Nutritional Care:

1. 1. Generally in all the foster families the balanced food is given and it is kept up by good monitoring system.  Besides the best balanced food that is given to the children we also give extra nutritional care for the infected children.  Extra non-vegetarian food (meat, egg), fruits and vegetables are supplied for them. 
   2. Mixer of good nutritious flour (“Satthumavu”) from various food grains is given to them.   
   3. Multi vitamin comprised of various siddha medicine is given to them as supplementary. This helps them to keep their immune power high, especially the children on ART are likely to loose weight and it helps them as a good supplement. The mothers say very effective among the children and we find significant difference among the children.

Health Care:

1. All our children’s villages are very neat and tidy.  The cleanliness is very important.  Especially Sirumalar Children’s Village is situated in an open space surrounded by coconut grove.  Each house is very spacious, furnished with all the household materials and surrounded by a small garden. 
2. A nurse and a driver are living in the campus to attend to any emergency needs.  They also monitor the children who are taking tablets regularly. The foster mothers and the children themselves are very prompt in this regard. The nearest hospital is 8 km away.  There is also a hospice for HIV/AIDS run by presentation sisters (Jeevan Jyothi Hospice).  It is around 25 km away.  We do not take any risk with our children and they are taken to the hospitals.
3. Every month the ART children are taken to near by district head quarter hospital (Theni District Government Medical Hospital) for the routine check ups.  Their health condition is constantly reviewed and treatment is given accordingly. 

Play and Recreation:

There is big play ground well equipped with various types of swings and play materials.  In the houses and in common there are number of indoor games materials, T.V. and library books to spend their free time more leisurely.  In the play ground the mothers are with children organizing games so that no child is left out and remains aloof.

Education:

1. These children are admitted in our own schools. Even though our schools are run for our own children who are under our care, around 50% of the students are day-scholars.  The children get the friendship of the local society.  All the children know who are all HIV infected especially who are under ART.  But no social stigma or discrimination is attached to it.  Any attempt of discrimination or seclusion is severely dealt with. 
2. Just with outward appearance one can not easily identify these children. 
3. The teachers know the health condition of the children and deal with them accordingly. Our teachers are well oriented towards it.  The Head Mistress and the teachers are prepared to handle any unexpected events like vomiting and nose bleeding etc.   
4. There is very enjoyable environment in the class room especially in primary level. Thanks be to the government for introducing ABLM (Activity Based Learning Method) system at this level. 
5. The infected children follow all that is given to the other children.  They are encouraged to do all the routine works. They are encouraged to participate in all the activities like cultural, sports etc. They are performing well in the academic activities. 
6. Corporal punishment is strictly forbidden.
7. These children are not forced for anything, even for learning.  Taking into consideration the effects of the medicine we encourage them to do everything to their best but when one feels and really unable to follow the routine they are exempted.

Challenges:

1. As long as they are under institutional care everything seems to be alright.  But when they are out of our institution i.e. after 12th standard we do not have any technical training institution who would willingly admit these children. There should be an institution that would give importance for health and medical care.  This we face when we send out children out for their home holidays.  Even after repeated instruction given to the parents still they sometimes fail to take the medicine regularly.
2. Since they can not be forced to learn owing to their physical condition like other negative children there is good percentage who can not study.  Or they are unable to cope up with studies once they start ART. And about their future…!?
3. We have our own institution that can support till 12th standard. What about afterwards? We raised this problem to Dr. Rajasakaran, a member of NACO, he has promised that they would something about it.
4. Since the institution is doing everything for them there is also a tendency among some of the children that the institution will support in any case. 
5. It is our philosophy that no discrimination, no matter what kind, be practiced.  The infected children are kept in a safe environment.  We keep both positive and negative children together.   But when the government officials visit our institution they insist that they be separated.  We all know well that HIV will not spread by staying together. It would be highly appreciable if this forum could lobby the government officials in this regard.

We always try to give a message to the children that the life is worth living even if it is for a day long. Every day of their living is the success of our service.