Kids with HIV deserve love and a future too

Kids with HIV deserve love and a future too Published:Feb 10, 2008 We want to tell you the story of a little girl we know. Her name is Ketiwe. We met her in April last year when she was just two years old. She’d been abandoned at a children’s shelter in Hillbrow and was nothing but skin and bones.When she arrived at Impilo, she was suffering from kwashiorkor and all she did was sit and stare. She had difficulty eating and had constant diarrhoea. She didn’t have the strength to lift herself up and could not walk. Doctors from the Big Shoes Foundation examined her and referred her to a hospital, where she tested positive for HIV. My name is Sue Krawitz and I have the privilege of working at Impilo Home for Orphaned and Abandoned Children where, with a team of caregivers and social workers and volunteers, we provide a place of safety. The children in our care range from newborn to toddlers of three. Our mission is to find a “forever family for every child”. We are a small, privately funded home, but we are very much a part of the wider network of organisations that take care of babies whose birth parents — for financial, social and health reasons — are unable to care for their children.