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| Adoption a dream for HIV+ children |
| Agnes ensures he gets good nutrition and regular medical check ups.
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| INDIA
, 9-August-2007
2:7:42 AM |
| Seven-year-old Sundar lived in Ashray, a Mumbai-based NGO, that provides food and shelter to HIV positive children, after his parents died of AIDS.
Till Agnes, a social worker from the nearby town of Roha, took Sundar home along with his older brother and sister who are not positive. Life since has changed for Sundar.
Agnes ensures he gets good nutrition and regular medical check ups.
55-year-old Agnes now Sundar's foster mother has two biological children as well.
''Knowing that Sundar is HIV positive, I still wasn't sure then. My younger son told me to take all three. The good everyone takes, mummy you do something different,'' said Agenes, Sundar's foster mother.
15-year-old Babu was also in Ashray. But unlike Sundar, Babu has TB and that too multi-drug resistant, a form that could easily infect other positive children at the shelter.
He needed to be isolated but with the NGO short of space, Babu had to be returned to his mother Anju.
A commercial sex worker at Kamathipura, Anju is also positive and unable to take care of him.
Need for medical care
The two have been knocking doors but in vain as there are no institutions for positive children who need specialised medical care.
''They used to tell me we can't keep you because you will spread the infection. I would cry after hearing that,'' said Babu.
Unfortunately, it's Babu's story and not Sundar's that plays out time and time again.
Even government institutions are unwilling to take responsibilty for HIV positive children.
Foster, care or adoption is so rare that Agnes and Sundar's story has become a UNICEF case study.
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