Under Fives Feeding Program

Today marks World AIDS Day. Over 30 million people have died from AIDS related causes. An estimated 33 million are living with HIV. 2.9 million of these are children. Around 68% of from sub-Sahara Africa. Zambia has the seventh highest prevalence in the world. Today gives the opportunity to unite in the fight against HIV and to commemorate the people who have died from this devastating disease.

World AIDS Day - young Mukuni girl free of HIV

For the past five years The Butterfly Tree funds several HIV projects in the Mukuni Chiefdom of Zambia. These include orphan sponsorship, educational workshops and voluntary testing, treatment for the sick and an under-fives’ feeding programme to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child. Formula is provided to replace breast milk in HIV positive mothers. Since its conception in 2007 every infant accepted on our program has been tested negative. Due to high costs of powdered milk we have initiated a goats’ milk project to supplement the programme, with the aim of making it sustainable.

Mutsa Marau with a Mukuni baby

This year we have intoduced a new project thanks to Mutsa Marau, a young volunteer from London, who at our own cost, has been working in Mukuni Village for the past three months. Her HIV prevention programme to train peer educators amongst the school pupils has been a huge success. Having spent her time training these young educators, assisted by Margaret Mulenga, they are now targeting outreach villages to ‘spread the word’. Today to mark the occassion 15 members, between the ages of 14 and 20 years, will be performing at the Chief ‘s Palace as part of Mukuni Villages’ activities to mark World AIDS Day. The groups performance will include poetry reading along with the presentation of art pieces explaining how every one of them can help the prevalance of HIV in their community get to zero.

Peer educators in HIV prevention including sponsored orphans

From the 5th – 9th December all donations to The Butterfly Tree have a chance to be doubled if made through our partners, the Big Give, during their Christmas Challenge week. To participate and help to give these young AIDS orphans a chance please donate to our programme through the Big Give website.

Twelve months ago, during one of my visits to Mukuni Village, I was saddened to hear that a baby had died from malnutrion. The infants father, who had been suffering from TB, had passed away only a few days earlier;  her older brother was one of our sponsored orphans. I immediately set up a feeding program at the Mukuni Health Centre

Mothers who are HIV positive are discouraged to breatfeed babies over six months in order to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to infant. This is virtually impossible when you are so poor that you cannot find the money to pay for  formula; lack of nutrition can result in a child being prone to illness and subsequently malnutrition.

Within six months The Butterfly Tree’s feeding program has greatly improvedthe situation. Now there are no babies suffering from malnutrtion and more mothers are coming forward to be tested for HIV, knowing that they can participate in the program should the test be positive. For the young babies formula is provided, for the older ones, a fortified porridge made up of lactogen, ground nuts or kapenta, a dried fish and a good source of protein and mulitivitamins are given for ones that are under weight.

For the past four months, thanks to a grant from Avert, made directly to The Butterfly Tree in Zambia, we have been able to continue this very worthwhile program and hope that one day we can introduce this to other clinics in the district.

 In 2009 Karen Lytle, a donor from Arizona, generously took over the funding of this vital project.