ANNUAL REPORT
2013-2014
ABOUT BUDS OF CHRIST 1
HEALTH 2 Successful Case Study Programs under Health
EDUCATION Successful Case Study
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Programs under Education
ADVOCACY 8 Successful Case Study Programs under Advocacy
LEADERSHIP 10 Successful Case Study Programs under Leadership
About Buds of Christ Buds of Christ exists to empower children from the most disadvantaged communities, with a focus among children and girls who have lost their parent/s and is living in disadvantaged circumstances of poverty, caste discriminated communities and HIV & AIDS. We recognize that children without the care of parents or guardian are often vulnerable to various forms of abuses and exploitation. We strive to empower these children to reduce their vulnerability and help them grow up to be capable adults in this world. We believe that unless children are empowered, their wellbeing is not complete.
VISION Empowering Children | Enabling Wellbeing
MISSION To love, listen, learn and lead orphans and vulnerable children and youth to live life positively and with dignity to be children of hope and courage to their peers and their community
STRATEGY H.E.A.L Health – Education – Advocacy – Leadership Name
Buds of Christ Charitable Trust
Date of Registration
10 January 2007
Constitution
Registered as a Public charitable trust
Registration Number
59/2007 v
Project Address
164, Kootapalli Housing Board Colony
Tiruchengode 637 214 Namakkal District
IT Exemptions
80 G and 12 AA
DIT (E) No.2 (433) / 09-10 dt 25-02-2010
FCRA (Social, Educational)
075910025 dt 19-10-2011
PAN
AABTB2817P
Credibility Compliance
Listed with Guidestar India
Listed with Credibility Alliance - India
Past and Current Partners UNICEF – Tamilnadu Singapore International Foundation (www.sif.org.sg) Global Giving Love India Stop TB Partnership Child Rights Information Network Website www.budsofchrist.org 1
HEALTH Successful Case Study Arul Kumar is a young boy, infected by HIV, but is not yet on treatment. Buds of Christ staff, visited him and encouraged him to go for CD4 testing. In the test it was found that his CD4 count was only 83. He and his grandfather were counselled about the importance of starting medications and with the help of our staff they started the first line treatment in the hospital. Jayashree health was failing. She was already on first lien treatment, but somehow her health was steadily declining. Our staff visited her at home and counselled her. They realized that the family was not very much involved in taking care of her health. Our staff spoke to Jayashree’s sister and spoke of the need of supporting Jayashree and encouraging her to take her medications regularly at the right time. Since the second line treatment is accessible only in Chennai, our staff networked with the people at Namakkal G.H., and Salem G.H., and got letters recommending Jayashree for viral load testing and second lien treatment at Chennai.
Home Visits Home visits are essential to ensure that children and their families take good care of their health and helps monitor the medicine intake and progress. The Home visits by Buds of Christ staff are ensuring continual care and support to families affected by HIV, especially in the treatment area. Staff are encouraging people infected by HIV, to pursue correct and timely treatment and help them for referral in case second line treatment needs to be started.
Little Stars Support Group
In the Little star support group for small children, the children were taught about good touch and bad touch. Child protection is one the main pillars of the work of Buds of Christ. We ensure that our children feel safe and know the rules of protection where ever they are. We also encourage children to say ‘No’ when their right to protection is violated. To this end, children were taught about what constitutes child abuse and what good touch and bad touch were and how to respond if someone tried to touch them in a bad way. Through the training, children learnt that their body belongs to them and that no one has a right to touch them in a bad way.
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Support group for women living with HIV: The first meeting for women for the year 2014 was organized in March to elicit the concerns they have around health and about their children’s future. The needs and the recommendations were presented to state chapter of Makkal Nala Iyakkam to be included in the state health recommendation. The support group for women, not only helps women share their life stories and encourage each other, but it also gives them the confidence to face the future. Knowing that there are others like them is a big strength for these women. They share their personal concerns, issues with children and the like and encourage and support each other. One of our women by the name, Deepa came dejected to the women’s support
Vettrikottam Support Group Vettrikottam in tamil means the ‘winning group’. We want our adolescent children to win and be successful in their lives. We want them to realize that HIV is just a disease and that it is not the end of the world for them, we want to instill in them the confidence that they can succeed in spite of HIV. This support group is exclusively for the adolescent boys who are infected by HIV. Some of the problems these children face are unique and they rarely have a chance to share their fears and talk about it. To facilitate sharing among the boys, Buds of Christ organized the Vettrikottam Boys, and the response has been awesome. The support group gives the boys a chance to share their innermost thoughts and bond with each other, supporting each other in the journey of life. Although these adolescent boys appear strong on the outside, they fear that people will keep them away if they come to know their status. They hesitate to openly share their status for fear of losing their friends, and fear the reaction of people. The support group provides a common ground for them to share their fears and doubts and support each other.
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group meeting. She had no hope for the future and kept crying all the time. The other women comforted her and encouraged her to share. Deepa doesn’t know much about HIV. She hadn’t disclosed her status to her children, but they themselves came to know about it by seeing her medical records. Deepa anguished that her daughter was not sharing anything with her. Deepa herself did not have anyone to talk with and kept all her burdens bottled up inside. Seeing the other women share their stories on how they disclosed their status to their children and way they took care of their health, Deepa was encouraged. She promised to talk to her children and create an atmosphere of sharing at home. The other women extended their support by giving their phone numbers to her, so that she could call them when she had a doubt or needed help.
Pongal celebrations: The support group of Children living with HIV (little stars) had Pongal celebrations at the government hospital on Jan 11th and about 20 children participated. It has been a yearly celebration that the children enjoyed sharing Pongal and sugar cane among them as well as have a closer interaction with the hospital staff. This has been the third year, the celebration has been held in the government ART center, Namakkal. Pongal was also celebrated in the power club (a value education club for women and orphan children) at the center on Jan 14th and about 30 children participated.
Parenting Skills Workshop The care takers (especially widow women living with HIV) of children and adolescents were provided training on parenting skills. Practical examples enabled rural women to understand parenting skills. Following the training the care takers were asked to set plans to enable a better understanding between children and the care taker. “This workshop helped me understand what children expect of me; and that I need to stand by them and make them feel important” – Widowed mother of three girl children “I have always restricted myself in expressing my love to my daughter, but now I have decided that physical gestures like kissing and hugging can make a big difference to my child”- widow mother living with HIV
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With the help of Buds of Christ, she contacted various people in the field of Agricultural sciences and wrote a separate entrance exam for Annamalai University which offered the course. Her determination and resolve paid off. She got admission to the B.Sc Agriculture course and is now more confident than ever that her dream of becoming the best agricultural scientist in the country will come true. Buds of Christ is happy to have played a role in helping Menaka reach for her dream and supported Menaka with an educational scholarship of Rs. 5000/- for her higher secondary and now Rs. 10000/- scholarship for her B.Sc Agri course fees. Buds of Christ is serving over 170 children like Menaka in rural areas who have lost one or both parents.
EDUCATION
Buds of Christ extends support to children to continue education, to live healthy and build life skills for a productive and empowered life.
The Dream Catcher Menaka was born in a rural family that looked to agriculture as a source of sustenance. After she lost her father, life was hard for her, her mother and brother. It was her dream to become an agricultural scientist and she worked hard towards that end, propelled by the love for the field and the beauty of nature that her grandfather had instilled in her. After writing her 12th Public exam she attended our camp “Buds n Colors 2013”, where the adolescent children were made to visualize their dream through an art exercise. In the Dream BIG exercise, she visualized herself as an agricultural scientist who was receiving her reward from another scientist for her innovation in the field. It was after the camp, the 12th results were released. Surpassing all odds and obstacles, Menaka scored 1028 marks in her 12th Public exam. She and her family were elated, she thought that the first step in achieving her dream had been reached. But unfortunately for her, the cut-off marks for admission to B.Sc Agriculture was set a bit high and the competition was huge, over 30000 applications for 600 seats. On seeing her marks, there were many friends
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and neighbors who persuaded her and her mother to take up engineering as that would give an easier entry and also better income. But Menaka was determined, it was her cherished dream to become an agricultural scientist and she was going to catch it, come what may. She started exploring other opportunities to study agriculture. When asked why she was so single-minded in pursuing agriculture, when other options were available, she said; “I come from an agricultural family. After my father’s death, we (mother, brother and I) moved over to our grandparent’s place. I used to go along with my grandfather to the field and enjoy working in the field. Now that we have moved out into the town for my education, I still cherish those memories of being at the field, sowing and reaping the crops. When I was in my 9th standard, my grandfather expressed with deep anguish that many were giving away the lands for real-estate business and agriculture work was coming down. Then I made a decision that I should give back to the land that fed me and my family and that is when I started dreaming to become an agricultural scientist”.
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Handling public exams effectively - seminar for students appearing for 10th and 12th exams:
ADVOCACY Buds of Christ at the National Consultation for Adolescents Two adolescents, Shalini and Sakthivel were selected as representatives from Tamilnadu for the National Consultation for Adolescents organized by Positive Women Network from Jan 20th to 26th, 2013 at New Delhi. It was a first time experience for both of them to meet other children like them from across the country. Jeyapaul, the director of Buds of Christ was the lead facilitator in the Consultation.
Buds of Christ believes that it is important to in fine tune the study skills of the students apart from providing material educational support. Attending Public exams, is a terrifying moment for all children, especially our children most of whom are first generation learners who lack familial guidance and support. A one day seminar was organised for 10th and 12th students at the Buds of Christ center. About 15 adolescents participated and were provided with tips in preparations for exams. Experience sharing from previously passed out-students were facilitated to encourage the children appearing for the exams. This little initiative paid off, as the children were able to perform well in their exams overcoming their fears. Buds of Christ is proud to declare that the children we support have shown remarkable results in their 10th and 12th standard exams.
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Surrounded by insurmountable odds like power cuts, poor nutrition due to poverty and depressing situations of having to deal with their own HIV status apart from taking care of sick parents, the children have excelled in their studies. Our children achieved 100 % results in 12th standard and 98% in the 10 standard. In this, two girls were able to achieve more than a 1000 marks /1200 in their 12th standard, while in the 10th Std., four children achieved more than 400/500. They are all from government schools, and the lack of private coaching and top notch teaching methods, didn’t deter them from achieving their best. . For academic year 201314, Buds of Christ has supported children with study guides and learning materials in order to encourage them to excel in studies. Priority was given to 10th and 12th standard students. This year a total of 45 students were supported with the learning materials and stationeries.
Children’s Consultation Program UNICEF organized a 5 day consultation in the beginning of October 2013, to bring the issues of children affected by HIV before the government and the civil society. It was an opportunity for children infected by HIV, especially our children from Buds of Christ to share their problems and troubles they face before government representatives. Children initially had apprehensions about sharing their problems, but as the days progressed they worked with other
children in articulating their problems clearly to the government and civil society. Children spoke about the lack of awareness in schools and the stigma they still face in schools and in society. They asked that the teachers be trained on HIV awareness. The children made representations to the health officials that the day for their medicine dispensation be changes to Saturday, so that they would not have to skip school. The children from Buds of Christ were very confident in putting forth their thoughts and ideas and were also an inspiration to other children.
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Advocating for Children’s Support OVC Trust
SPONSORSHIP from District Child Protection Unit
Geethalakshmi, Center In-charge of Buds of Christ was able to facilitate educational support to about 70 children from HIV affected families in Namakkal district through the OVC trust of TANSACS. The support was given to the children by the Mr Dhakshinamoorthi, Namakkal District Collector.
This year the long standing networking and advocacy efforts of Buds of Christ has paid off and the organization has been successful in taping government funds allocated for children affected by HIV. Buds of Christ has been successful in mobilizing sponsorship for 24 orphan children who are living with HIV, from the District Child Protection Committee, under the Sponsorship Program from the Governemnt. The sponsorship enables the children to receive a monthly monetary support of Rs. 1000/- for next 3 years. Buds of Christ applied for 40 children and 24 children received support.
LEADERSHIP Empowered Nadiya, born HIV+ building hope in another Nadiya is an active member in our support group for adolescent children living with HIV. She is 19 years old and is a positive speaker among young people living with HIV, encouraging others by being open about her status. But Nadia’s efforts did not just stop with our support group, empowered with the trainings given by Buds of Christ, she went on to become a symbol of hope and transformation in the community. Once, Nadiya came to know of a school friend (Reena – name changed) from her village who had recently discovered she is HIV positive. Reena’s parents had died at a very early age and she was brought up by her aunt. Reena got married when she was 18, and discovered that she was HIV+ after having a miscarriage. It was a huge shock for Reena when she learnt that her husband was HIV negative.
On probing further, Reena found that she was infected from birth and that her parents had died of AIDS. On knowing this, her husband deserted her and she contemplated committing suicide. When Nadiya learnt about this, she wanted to make a difference. She visited Reena and shared her life story with her. Drawing from her own life experience she shared the possibility of a healthy life with treatment. Nadiya then brought Reena to the center to meet with the support group. Reena realized that there is hope for her and felt encouraged to meet others like her. A grateful Reena expressed; “If not for Nadiya I would have committed suicide, I lost hope completely as my husband had rejected me. And now my aunt’s son’s wife with whom I am staying wants me out of the family as she fears HIV may be contracted to her child though my presence at home. But after coming here and seeing many like me, I feel supported and have hope for the future”.
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circumstances ‘Why am I like this’. In addition to this normal turmoil, adolescent children affected by HIV, face considerable challenges either because of their own disease status and the apparent grim situation at home. This is a new generation of young people who were infected as babies and are now growing up. They struggle to come in terms with their status, knowing all too well that they are suffering, stigmatized and ostracized for no fault of theirs. This has led many to take drastic decisions; many young girls and boys stop coming to the center, losing hope of ever having a normal life. This year the camp had about 30 young adolescents participating in a four day residential workshop at Yercaud from 28th to 31st May 2013.The camp had sessions starting with helping children understand their self-worth and then moving on to setting higher goals. As these adolescent children set out to face life, it is pertinent to give them the hope that dreams can be achieved. The camp also had special speakers who encouraged the young people to look beyond their current circumstances by sharing their expertise and life experience with them.
Singapore International Foundation and Star India Training This training helped children to know more about themselves, their strengths, weaknesses and talents. Children were taught to appreciate their strengths and build on it. They were taught that right from the time we are born, the society tries to dictate the direction we need to take. But it is important that we set our own goals, and move determinedly towards the goal. It is also important to look back and learn from the things and people who shaped us to achieve our goals. The right side of the brain has the imaginative power and the left side helps to convert this imagination into action. Therefore only if we dream and imagine achieving our goals, can we move towards translating it into action. For this proper planning and focus is needed. If we determined, we will succeed with inspiration from others. In the same way children were taught to inspire and encourage others. Children learnt that the most important thing in achieving our goals is ‘Believing we can’, and not focusing on the negative things others tell us. The training was helpful not only to the children but also to all the staff of Buds of Christ.
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Buds N colors smaller children camp:
Buds N Colors 2013 Annual Summer Leadership camp Every year Buds of Christ conducts a residential camp for small children and adolescents to help nurture the innate God given potential in them. This year the theme for the Buds n Colors 2013 Camp was ‘Dream BIG’. It was planned with a special mission of encouraging adolescent children to set higher goals and set plans towards achieving it. The special focus was on adolescents this year. Adolescence is a stage in life, when children struggle with questions about self, ‘Who am I’ and questions about
This camp was organized exclusively for smaller children 8 and 12 years old, and the special focus was on HIV positive children. The camp was organized in partnership with St Xavier’s Community Health Center at Varadarajapuram for two days on 13th and 14th May 2013. The sessions in the camp focused on helping younger ones understand about HIV and why taking medications was necessary. In addition art, craft and storytelling sessions were also included.
Volunteers from Singapore International Foundation The Singapore International Foundation is a great supporter of the work of Buds of Christ and send volunteers every year towards capacity building initiatives in Buds of Christ. As part of the partnership programme with Singapore
International Foundation, capacity building in case management is one project that has been under process. Through this the team members and volunteers of Buds of Christ are equipped with skills in better understanding the issues of children and the care takers. The training held in May 2013, highlighted the importance of case management process using formats with special skills focusing on engaging smaller children to express their concerns through art. The training and practice was done through home visits and training session at the office. “It has always been a great challenge in engaging smaller children and understanding the issues affecting them. The drawing exercise helped us understand the process better and also enabled us to sit at the level of the child to understand their perceptions on it”- staff member “For me, it was a wonderful exposure in understanding how the drawing tool can be effective in helping children and adolescents to express their concerns especially in the house that we visited where the father died recently due to advanced state of AIDS”- volunteer Apart from training the staff, the volunteers from SIF also worked with the children using art therapy. An Art workshop was organized for adolescents living with HIV by Esther Joosa, Director of the Arts of the Earth, Singapore and a volunteer with Singapore International Foundation. The workshop brought in 20 adolescents who were able to express their emotions and were healed of their hurts through art. In the exercise she asked all the participants to express their likes and dislikes through art. For most of them exploring their feelings through art was a first time experience. The most interesting part of the exercise was it helped even the silent adolescents express their feelings to their peers. For an orphan adolescent boy, the support group of adolescents living with HIV has been his strongest like. For an orphan adolescent girl living with HIV, the art helped her to emote her suppressed pains and hurt feelings. The workshop strengthened the relationships among peers and led Buds of Christ to have a closer look at the real concerns of children born with HIV.
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Buds of Christ Charitable Trust 164, I Floor, Kootapalli Housing Board, Tiruchengode 637214, Namakkal District, Tamilnadu, INDIA Ph : +91 4288 281722, www.budsofchrist.org