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10 Million AIDS Orphans in Africa
Newsweek's cover story for January 17, 2000, "10 Million Orphans," describes the devastation wreaked on children, families, and entire nations, as a result of the AIDS pandemic sweeping sub-Saharan Africa. In its lead article, the weekly mentions World VisionŐs assistance to orphans and their families in Uganda.
The United Nations and the World Health Organization report that the pandemic has already killed some 16.3 million people in sub-Saharan Africa,
creating an orphan crisis of unprecedented proportions. By the end of this year the groups project that 13 million children - 10.4 million under age 15 - will have lost their mother or both parents to AIDS. Unfortunately, the worst is still to come. Experts predict that the number of AIDS orphans will double or triple by 2010.
AIDS is having a serious and measurable impact on the labor force on national levels. Increasingly, fields are worked by children aged nine to 13 and their grandparents. These are not very productive groups in society, and the children are unskilled. In parts of East Africa, World Vision microenterprise projects are bringing money into rural communities as poor local economies are shattered by the loss of people in their most productive adult years and the children are learning to cope without their parents.
Orphans, according to reports, run greater risks of being malnourished and stunted than children with parents. They are more likely to be denied education by overburdened extended families and often are denied health care under the assumption that they are already infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Consequently, they run a higher risk of abuse, homelessness, and sexual exploitation than children orphaned by other causes.
World Vision has projects to help AIDS orphans in Eastern and Southern Africa - two of the hardest hit regions. Child sponsorship area development projects assist orphans in other affected areas.
Please pray for the children, whose parents have died or are suffering the ravages of the disease, that the Lord will enable organizations like World Vision to meet their needs and provide them with help and hope for the future.
An Estimated 50,000 Killed in Venezuela Disaster
Unrelenting rains along the Caribbean coast of Venezuela in mid-December dislodged entire mountainsides, pouring tons of mud, gravel, and enormous boulders down on poor shantytowns perched in the mountains.
Although eclipsed in the media by fears of terrorism and Y2K trouble, this disaster is Venezuela's worst in a century, claiming five times more lives than Hurricane Mitch did in Central America last year. Officials estimate that 50,000 people have died and between 200,000 and 300,000 have been left homeless.
The worst flooding occurred in the state of Vargas, north of the capital Caracas, causing as much as $15 billion in damage. According to Mrs. Marlene de Laya, wife of the governor of Vargas, more than 70 percent of the people in the state lived below the poverty line and 45 percent were unemployed before the disaster occurred.
Cleveland Indians baseball star and native Venezuelan, Omar Visquel, surveyed the ravaged coastline January 12. He is carrying the message to media in Venezuela and the United States that World Vision and its partner, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), are committed to having an impact on the plight of the flood and landslide victims.
Visquel and John Yale, World Vision's relief team leader, met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on January 13 to discuss the emergency response. Yale anticipates World Vision will pour significant resources into rehabilitation projects to help the population recover.
World Vision has already shipped clothing, shoes, and medical supplies valued at $310,000 along with search and rescue equipment to the country. Other assistance underway includes the provision of hygiene kits and trauma counseling for grief-stricken survivors.
Please pray for the Venezuelans who are still coming to terms with their losses.
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