Building Resilience, Addressing Vulnerability

With funding from USAID/PEPFAR, CHF has been working to mobilize communities to live positively with HIV/AIDS and encourage health-seeking behavior since 2005. Working side-by-side with community-based, faith-based and non-governmental organizations, CHF is helping these organizations to build capacity to support, treat and care for tens of thousands of Rwandans living with HIV/AIDS and hundreds of thousands of others affected by the epidemic. CHF works by increasing the ability of local institutions to provide a broad range of services to HIV-affected communities. With a special focus on orphans and vulnerable children, a legacy of the 1994 genocide, CHF’s goal in Rwanda is to provide comprehensive community care that includes social services, counseling, health care, education assistance, economic skills development and employment generation.

The outcomes of these activities include:

• More than 170,000 people reached through HIV/AIDS prevention messages

• Nearly 40,000 orphans and vulnerable children have received health and nutrition education, clinical services, and school supplies and uniforms so that they can continue their education

• Over 26,500 people have received palliative care services, including counseling, nutrition, home care and hospital-related support
  

• Over 3,000 men and women have been trained in providing HIV and AIDS-related palliative care services
  

• Over 1,000 child-headed households received vocational training and donations of basic necessities
  

Promoting Cooperative Development for Sustainability

CHF is also helping to expand economic opportunities for vulnerable populations by promoting cooperative development. CHF is helping HIV-affected individuals develop new productive enterprises and services through cooperative activities. By encouraging beneficiaries to form for-profit cooperatives, they can pursue employment-generating activities and ensure they become financial sustainable. CHF teaches these newly formed cooperative enterprises how to pool their resources, improve their production skills, and better market their products.

Protecting Local Habits with Fuel Efficient Stoves

With funding from the Disney Foundation, CHF is helping provide families in Rwanda with fuel efficient stoves. The stoves are locally produced and distributions will target children-headed households and other vulnerable groups. Fuel efficient stoves use significantly less wood, which confers multiple advantages. Households will not need to spend as much time searching for and collecting firewood, freeing family members to spend time on more productive activities. Additionally fewer trees will need to be cut down or destroyed benefiting the environment.