Recently, Aashish Church, Rajpur (Doti District) distributed school materials to children affected by HIV and AIDS. UMN’s Doti Cluster supported the program. Nine students from five different families received school materials (school uniform, bag, exercise books, pen, pencil, ruler, geometric box, etc.) Three were girls and six were boys. All of these students have lost their father to AIDS, and their mothers are also HIV positive, and are taking ARV. One of the mothers said: “I am struggling to rear the children each day because I am living with HIV.”

The schools and the Village Development Committee recommended these children, based on their poor family background, and the difficulties their mothers are facing to bring up the children alone. Another mother said: “Since my husband died from AIDS, I have been facing big difficulties to send my three children at school, because we are so badly off.” One of the children said, “My mum sells wood to provide what we need for school, but today I am very happy getting all these things. It will help my study. I will study very hard.” Another child said, “My mum breaks pebbles/stone near the Seti River in order to pay for our schooling. We are very sad because our father died due to AIDS. He was our family’s sole support.”

The pastor of Aashish Church thanked UMN for their great contribution for the poor HIV-affected families’ schoolchildren; he hopes that this compassionate contribution from UMN will continue. “God’s blessing upon UMN, and on these poor and marginalized families. I pray for you all,” he said.

Sabu Tamang
Assistant Cluster Team Leader
Doti Cluster