Their collective wisdom is incalculable — and so is the collective burden they carry when families are torn apart by AIDS.
Africa’s newest special interest group is that of grandmothers. They will attend their first special conference this week to share experiences and call for international recognition of their uniquely difficult circumstances.
A summit of grandparents in the west might prompt jokes about bingo and dentures, but the inaugural African Grandmothers’ Gathering, starting in Swaziland tomorrow, is a gravely serious affair.
More than 450 grandmothers from 12 African countries will meet to discuss the impact of losing adult children to AIDS, becoming the head of a household and raising grief-stricken grandchildren as their own.
These forgotten victims hope to build a “solidarity movement” across Africa to make the case that grandmothers need targeted support from international donors and aid agencies.
“It’s a lost group, a lost voice,” said Philile Mlotshwa of SWAPOL (Swaziland Positive Living), which is organizing the event in partnership with the Canada-based Stephen Lewis Foundation. “They are the heroes, yet no one has gone to them to say we recognize your efforts.”
The organizers say it is time to heed the “indomitable and indefatigable” grandmothers who step forward to care for children, sometimes as many as 10 to 15 in one household.
Mlotshwa said she hoped the gathering would raise awareness of grandmothers’ needs. “Various responses to HIV-AIDS have been designed but not yet targeted at them.”
The grandmothers are likely to seek international support for grief counseling, access to healthcare for themselves and children in their care, safe and adequate housing, economic security, safety from gender-based violence, raising community awareness and breaking stigma, support in raising grief-stricken grandchildren and access to education for children.
Grandmothers from Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be represented.
Among them will be “Mama” Darlina Tyawana, who has six grandchildren and is taking care of her late sister’s grandchild in Cape Town.
“There are a lot of grandparents raising children because the parents died from HIV,” the 63-year-old said. “They are taking them to school, paying the school fees and carrying other burdens.”
Tyawana, who works as a counselor helping parents overcome the stigma of HIV, added that grandmothers also play a role in educating people about HIV.
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