ILANGA SELF EMPOWERMENT NETWORK

The Ilanga Self Empowerment Network Project represents a new dawn for single, HIV-positive mothers, who are otherwise faced with a very dire reality and set of statistics. In a country where women average a life-expectancy of only 33 years of age – the lowest in the world, an economy that features the highest inflation rate in the world, and a population of over 1 million orphans, considered the highest per capita number of orphans in the world, single HIV positive mothers in Zimbabwe are clearly faced with a unique set of challenges.

The Mission:

ISEN seeks to empower single HIV-positive mothers as a way of strengthening and revitalizing local safety nets that have been unraveled by HIV/AIDS, and to enable families to remain intact as a way of preventing children from becoming orphans due to HIV/AIDS.

Objectives:

The ISEN approach will address the basic nutritional, health and vocational needs of single HIV-positive mothers and their children and/or dependents by providing:

• nutritional assistance during the first year of implementation of the project plan
• sustainable access to health-care, HIV medications and multivitamins
• educational information and training in treatment adherence strategies and side-effects management
• access to a sustainable wellness program
• training in skills for managing micro-enterprise projects which can provide sustainable income for families
• education and training on becoming HIV prevention peer educators and support group facilitators by facilitating the transfer of knowledge by the graduating mothers, to a new group of program participants

Focus Population:

• HIV positive low-income mothers
• Pregnant HIV positive low-income women
• Low-income women caring for orphans and vulnerable children
• Non-orphaned children and dependents of low-income HIV positive mothers.