Lukia Nanfuka Babirye is a 17-year-old orphan who lost both parents to HIV/AIDS. Today Babirye is experiencing good health thanks to ARVs received from the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic, which has a program helping children with HIV/AIDS. Without the ARVs, Babirye would die, as her twin brother did at age nine.

 

Babirye lives in a two-room shack with her stepmother. Her father, who was a lorry driver, left the small house to them. She dropped out of school after the seventh grade  because her stepmother could not afford her further education beyond that point.

 

Babirye is the breadwinner of the household; she works as a house help/ nanny close to her home. She earns 30,000 UGX (approximately 17usd) per month. Babirye would like to take a tailoring course with the hope that it will improve her family’s living standards.

 

She has a very pleasant personality and now has a reason to smile because she has hope for her continued education.

Nerima Prossy, a beautiful and friendly girl, is 20 years old. She was born with HIV, and her mother died when she was three years old. Her father re-married, and since then she has been looked after by her elder sister whom she fondly calls Mama.

 

Her sister is a housewife with grown children and her brother-in-law, a coffee trader in the Kampala suburbs, is the family breadwinner.

 

Prossy has a very likeable personality. She is currently on ARVs, and it is hard to know that she has been through a lot at her young age. In 2002 she suffered a massive stroke that has left her with a limp in her right leg and a non-functioning right hand. Prossy has not let her disabilities hinder her. She writes with her left hand, and she completed a sponsored computer course, receiving a certificate for it.

 

Prossy would like to become a counselor to help her peers suffering from HIV/AIDS. To accomplish that, she needs to take a counseling course to help others deal with the disease and not see it as a disability.

Namugenyi Lilian is a shy and lovable girl. She is 16. She lost her mother at age three and her father at age ten to HIV/AIDS. She is the only one of her siblings who was born with HIV. Her health has been greatly improved ever since she started on ARVs at the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic in Mulago Hospital, Kampala.

 

Lilian currently lives with her maternal grandmother who can not afford to further her education. She would like to do a tailoring /fabric construction course. She hopes that with these skills she will be able to either employ herself or get employment improving the living conditions of her grandmother and siblings.

Kabasiita Martha is an 18-year-old beautiful girl who has suffered from HIV/AIDS since birth. She lost her mother in 2004 and has a good relationship with her unemployed father. Her father however has another family with older children and he does not want Martha to be known to them.

 

She currently lives with her maternal aunt who takes care of her and her three siblings from other relationships. Her aunt cannot afford to send any of them to school.

Today Martha is experiencing good health thanks to ARVs received from the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic in Mulago Hospital Kampala.

 

She would like to pursue a course in hairdressing. She hopes to start up her own hairdressing salon after she graduates. This will help her to improve her family’s living conditions and she hopes to send her siblings back to school.