Tamil Nadu - Nagercoil   

HIV-AIDS affected persons to get assistance

Nagercoil: Under the banner ‘From the Inner Heart - Care and support,’ Centre for Social Reconstruction (CSR), a non-governmental organisation here has come forward to extend all assistance to around 1,000 HIV/AIDS affected persons, including 79 children, in the district.

CSR director T. S. Ram Kumar said that HIV/AIDS was an enduring epidemic which must be fought along with prevention control activities. The affected persons and their family members must be get care and support services. People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) were vulnerable to particular ailments. In most cases, tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhoea and oral thrush were the major causes of mortality.

Adequate response to the healthcare needs of PLHA need a better understanding of their care and support needs. The needs of PLHA not only included medical care but also social, psychological, emotional and economic support. Besides, there was a need for protecting their rights, especially related to confidentiality. Hence there was a need for a holistic continuum of care through all stages of infection, which also should be accessible such as diagnostic and health services, social services and community-based home care services.

Mr. Ram Kumar said that past experience suggested that effective responses to HIV/AIDS would occur only if interventions were community based with full involvement of the members.

One of the key elements to effectively address HIV was to address the social and economic issues that increased vulnerability. Majority of the members wanted to be independent, and not be a burden to other family members and need not suffer from stigma and discrimination because of them. In support groups, the main activities were social welfare, access to information and services, and training programmes for creating awareness. Financial component was a secondary factor only.

Six cluster-level support groups had been promoted as self-help groups and provided with a seed money of Rs. 75,000 each to start micro enterprises. Overall, 61 beneficiaries had been selected by prioritising them such as clients who were under anti-retroviral therapy (ART); widows; caretakers of orphans; and clients who were not able to go for fishing, etc.

All six self-help groups have undergone training in entrepreneurship development programmes (EDP). They would motivate participants to start micro enterprises so they could become self-reliant.

CSR wanted to help them to open a bank account, but the bankers were reluctant to give loans to them. They were treated like any others seeking financial assistance to undertake an economic activity, Mr. Ram Kumar added.

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