The challenge: Children affected by HIV/AIDS struggle with more than health
HIV/AIDS destroys lives, families, and communities across the world. Sub-Saharan Africa bears an extraordinary burden of HIV/AIDS infection. Children are especially vulnerable. They face many barriers with life-changing consequences: poor nutrition, sickness, inadequate access to health services, and unstable family structure. An integrated and multifaceted approach is required to help children affected by HIV/AIDS survive and thrive in the communities where they live.
Integration of early childhood development services is an essential component of HIV/AIDS interventions
Research indicates that early childhood development childrens’ first five years are critical to their ability to be able to learn and gain life skills. Essential services for young children affected by HIV/AIDS can help them break out of a cycle of disease and poverty. If children’s developmental needs are unmet, they face a lifelong gap in education and income compared to their peers, and struggle to achieve their full potential. Funding for HIV/AIDS interventions, however, is concentrated on health and nutrition, and few funds are available for early childhood development.
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Seeks to Impact Hundreds of Thousands of Young Children Affected by HIV/AIDS
In November, the Hilton Foundation officially launched a new priority area for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS, focused in five sub-Saharan countries with high prevalence of HIV/AIDS—Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia. Our work through partners will help impact the lives of these young children by:
- assisting parents and caregivers in serving children’s developmental needs
- enhancing the ability of community-based organizations to deliver quality programs and services
- encouraging country-level and global stakeholders to leverage investments and resources.
The Foundation’s approach will connect to and leverage existing health, nutrition, and related services in areas of high HIV/AIDS prevalence. A key feature of our strategy is to share knowledge and encourage networks of service providers, funders, and governments to increase their collective ability to identify and apply best practices in a manner that improves the efficacy of their work. This allows Foundation investments to be leveraged through sustainable, proven practices and programs in the geographies we serve, and through replication of these approaches by other parties in additional locations—thereby generating a greater scale of impact.
About our strategy development process
In May of 2011, our board of directors reaffirmed the importance of Children Affected By HIV/AIDS as a priority for Foundation grantmaking and requested that Foundation staff develop a strategy for achieving measurable impact in this area. FSG was brought on board to carry out a landscape research project and to outline and recommend a strategy informed by substantial input from content experts and practitioners in the field.
After a period of research and dialogue with partners and stakeholders, board members participated in a strategy meeting on October 17 to provide feedback on the strategy development. The board's feedback and input was incorporated in our final strategy documentation and, on November 15, our board of directors approved Children Affected By HIV/AIDS (CABA) as a new strategy area for the Foundation.
Documentation of the research and HIV/AIDS landscape, as well as an overview of our program strategy, are available on our website.
