BOCAIP - Children and AIDS in Botswana

A child in need is everyone’s child
By Kennedy Jawoko

Fifty kilometres north of Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, in the village of Molepolole where cows, donkeys, goats and chickens roam freely, lies a quiet, clean and well managed orphan day care centre that is home away from home for 411 Batswana orphans whose individual stories resonate across the country.

“Bana Ba Keletso”, which means “Children of Hope”, is a charity organization that has opened its gates to a ballooning number of orphans, most of whose parents have died of AIDS. The centre is run, and funded in part, by the Botswana Christian AIDS Intervention Programme (BOCAIP), a partner organization to World University Service of Canada (WUSC).

Opened in 1998 as a Christian community response to the growing number of orphans in the area, “Bana Ba Keletso” accepts children from 2 to 18 years regardless of how their parents died because “we want to reduce stigma and discrimination associated with HIV.”

Sarah Ramaeba, a thirty-year old counsellor and mother, who’s worked at the day care centre for six years, says that each morning kids aged 2-6 years are picked up in a minivan from their different caregivers’ homes across the village and taken to the day care centre where they eat both breakfast and lunch, read the Bible, play games, draw and watch television before they are dropped back to their different homes.

Both the community and “Bana Ba Keletso” play their part in supporting the orphans. While the children are at the centre for their school activities, counsellors are sent out to the caregivers’ homes to discuss the problems they encounter raising the children. By doing so, the community and the centre are helping to raise the children collectively.

 “The caregivers and this centre have been of great help to these children who need all the support we can offer them. That’s why we’re volunteering. We need to improve their lives because they are the future,” urges 28-year-old Ipolokeng Tlhagiso, who’s a teacher and counsellor.

To the community of Molepolole, the philosophy of “Bana Ba Keletso” that says “A child in need is everyone’s child” is seen in practice each day. The children who benefit from “Bana Ba Keletso” reveal their appreciation for the games and singing at the centre with innocent and happy faces.

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