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The
cost of love
Feseha
Tassew
HelpAge
International-Ethiopia
Addis
Abeba
Ethiopia
The Cost of Love The social effects of HIV/
AIDS in Ethiopia are incalculable in the lives not only of the actually
victimized, but their families and the community as well. The families
with HIV/ AIDS patients grapple with parental or familial responsibility
of caring of patients, the economic burden of household expenses,
psychological as well as social burdens; feelings of stigmatization,
hopelessness, and fear of impending death, among others harass the family.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has a much wider psychological, demographic, and
economic repercussions--not to mention a heavy toll of its direct health
problems inflicted upon individual sufferers. Of the most pressing social
effects of HIV/ AIDS are family disintegration, divorce, and orphan hood.
This will have a deleterious effect on the urban destitute older people.
The orphaned children in most cases left to the meager, shaky custodial
care of the parents and grandparents who are more often than not the
destitute older people. Today, due to complex factors, the number of
orphaned children is on the rise in the city of Addis and other major
urban centers. The number one reason has now become mortality of adults
due to HIV/ AIDS. Children losing either or both of their parents are
growing in number and it is projected to double and triple in the near
future. The problem here of central significance to the findings of this
research is not so much the growing number of orphaned children due to
death of their parents by HIV/ AIDS as it is the often-concealed tragedy
of the older people. As is already indicated, the orphaned children are
often left with their grandparents, who are with little or no means of
economic and social support mechanisms. The impact of HIV/AIDS on all
sections of African society is immense but the specific impact on older
people is rarely analyzed. Not only are older people at risk of
contracting HIV from sexual contacts but also they are often the main
providers of care and support to those affected by AIDS and for orphans
and vulnerable children (OVC). In Ethiopia, 67% of AIDS care is provided
at home, often by older people, often women. HIV/AIDS devastates older
people: increasing numbers of older people suffer loss of adult children
and are taking responsibility for vulnerable and/or orphaned grandchildren
when they are frail and weak with reduced access to sustaining adequate
incomes. As people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, older people are
subjected to stigma and discrimination. Therefore, the urgent, and
puzzling questions are: what social support mechanisms are there to
accommodate these orphaned children? Above all, how do the grandparents
cope with the economic and social effects of HIV/ AIDS patients in the
family? With the shaky means of livelihood of the urban, poverty-stricken
destitute older people, it is very difficult and extremely constraining
for them to take care of orphans.
About Feseha Tassew
Mr. Feseha Tassew is a young Ethiopian
scholar who has B.A. degree in Political Science and International
Relations, (2003); M.A degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology (2006),
Addis Ababa University. He is serving as a General Manager in an
indigenous NGO undertaking activity on community development. As a
lecturer, in several colleges and institutions he has conducted courses
related to social science and research. He is also a leader on young
scholars research and training institution and has led different
researches and trainings in most part of the country. Apart from this, he
is serving as a program officer in HelpAge International-Ethiopia program,
which is leading the global action on aging. Mr. Feseha, who has a clear
vision for the future of Africa, intends to take a continuous action and
struggle against poverty by mobilizing and initiating the youth in the
Diaspora. As his professional career he strongly wishes to continue his
doctoral studies and interested to be an academician, researcher and good
activist participating in various developmental and policy issues
nationally and internationally. Mr. Feseha is forever indebted to Fikerte
Bekele, his mother, for her unwavering support, and to his family members,
for their love and inspiration.
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