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In Western Kenya, the HIV & AIDS scourge has debilitated ommunities’ care giving systems for masses of young children, leaving them under the care of ill equipped caregivers. Their efforts towards care for OVC need to be strengthened. KORDP uses a community based care (CBC) approach, the Early Childhood Day Care Center(ECDCC) model based on community volunteerism to do this. The challenge is how to successfully initiate and maintain community volunteerism.

KORDP, www.kordp.org facilitates 47 ECDCC Institutional Volunteer Committees to support 5,200 OVCs at village sites where children receive medical care, meals, play, emotional support and basic learning skills for transition to formal school. To strengthen the care giving systems for needy families and the ECDCC institutions, food security and income generation initiatives are implemented on family and institutional levels.

The ECDCC model has shown that a preparation period of at least one year is probably one of the most essential elements for the success of this community based care model. This period is needed to

• motivate the community to switch from apathy to actively seeking solutions;
• to mobilize communities into legally registered care providing committees; and
• to build their skills in health, sanitation, food, shelter, HIV & AIDS prevention & advocacy, psycho-social support, education, income generation and monitoring & evaluation.

This period creates tremendous community commitment; ownership and volunteerism, recreating home at the ECDCC and bringing life into the OVC families.

CBC approaches for OVC are likely to succeed if during the Project planning period communities are sensitized towards volunteerism as the basic ingredient in the foundation for ownership and sustainability of the development efforts in caring for young children within the context of HIV&AIDS.

KORDP will be one of the participants in the Action Tank on “HIV/AIDS and the Young Child: Promising Practices for the ECD community” during the 2007 World Forum in Kuala Lumpur. To let us know of other programs with promising practices that might be suitable for inclusion in the action tank, please contact [email protected]

Contributed by Kathleen Okatcha