Overview

This edition of author's acclaimed title explores how the AIDS crisis has devastated the world's poorest continent, and shows how families, charities and governments are responding to the next wave of the crisis - millions of orphans. Based on extensive interviews, Guest lets people tell their own stories. The result is a moving and disturbing account of the experiences of orphans, street children, grandparents, aunts, foster parents, charity and social workers and foreign donors across South Africa, Zambia and Uganda.

Full Product Details

9781869140304

Table of Contents

Reviews

Any calculation of the odds on Africa's successful future development must factor in the subject of this book. The author, a perceptive analyst of the ongoing AIDS tragedy, presents case studies of organized responses in three countries hit hard by the epidemic: Uganda, Zambia, and South Africa. With few exceptions, such as Uganda and Senegal, most African governments continue to be more part of the problem than the solution. Meanwhile NGOs are moving from exclusive focus on AIDS prevention and treatment to programs aimed at rescuing orphans. Indeed an impressive variety of coping strategies are ameliorating the orphan crisis, from foster parenting to community and institutional projects in both rural and urban settings. A particularly valuable chapter looks at the role of UNICEF in Zambia. -- Foreign Affairs This brave and moving book forces us to open our eyes to the full extent of the devastation that AIDS is causing in Africa. Through the words of AIDS orphans and those struggling to cope with the flood of unwanted children, Children of AIDS serves as a wake-up call for the international community. -- Susan Sarandon Africa faces an AIDS orphan crisis that may cause political instability, will certainly reverse development gains, and create overwhelming misery. Emma Guest's book is a hard hitting, moving but realistic review of what is happening to some orphans in Uganda, South Africa and Zambia. But it also has a message of hope. This book should be read by all concerned with the children of Africa. -- Alan Whiteside, Director of the Health Economics and HIV/AIDS Research Division, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa. Among those worst affected by the HIV plague in Africaare children of parents with AIDS. A limited resource for such children is the grand generation, especially grandmothers and their sisters. These older women, unlikely victims of the sexual predation so widespread in Africa, are less likely to have been attacked by HIV than younger folk. In urban areasAIDS-orphaned (or soon to be orphaned) children often prefer the freedom of the streets as compared to the confines of grandmother's shack in bidonville or tanktown. In cities the kids are sucked into a whirlpool of drugs, prostitution, and crime. In rural areas, where grandmothers are already depending on others for support, there are severe limits on how many, if any, children they can shelter and feed. Social services are next to nil; relief organizations are few and far between. Freelancer Guest details present and future dangers to African families and society in ten chapters. All levels and collections. --- F. P. Conant, emeritus, Hunter College, CUNY in CHOICE

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available