How Support Helps
SURF provides antiretroviral drugs to 14 widows and 8 children. SURF works with 8,600 widows who have tested positive, sadly nearly 2,800 have died from AIDS leaving children orphaned for the second time.
As little as £40 pounds a month will provide antiretroviral treatment (HIV medication) to a widow enabling her to look after her children. For example, a donor named Patricia set up a bankers' order with SURF in 2002. Her donation has enabled Uwayezu (a lone widow who had few days to live) access HIV antiretroviral medicine. Patricia has kindly given Uwayezu a new lease on life, which allowed Uwayezu is able to bring up her surviving children.
SURF provides funds to support home based care, counseling, medical care, breaking the silence, stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV.
- It costs £100 a month to pay a counsellor to provide home based care in the community. Jeanne is one of the oldest counsellors working with survivors. In Britain, Ms Holmes set up a bankers' order with SURF in 2001, her donation has enabled SURF to fund training and supervision to community based care providers for the benefit of survivors.
- £20 a year guarantees medical care insurance for a family, a necessity in Rwanda where this is no free medical care system. People living with HIV/AIDS are vulnerable to opportunistic infections that reduce the immune system, medical assistance will help fight the infections and extend the life of a survivor living with HIV/AIDS.
- £7 per month will feed an orphan. Many orphans not only have no formal education but also are forced to care for younger sibilings or other adopted family members. Your assistance can help make sure that they receive proper nutrition and do not go hungry.
These are essential and the only source of income to most widows and orphans. Through provision of grants and loans, SURF has helped to reduce vulnerability through improved standard of living, leading to greater resources being invested in health and education.
- £10 per month sponsors an orphan’s education for a month.
- A one-off donation of £50 provides a small business start up grant to enable a family to meet its basic needs.
- A gift of £370 provides vocational training for an orphan.
Having a safe place to call home is a luxury to many survivors of the Rwandan genocide. During the genocide many of the victims were evicted or driven from their homes and still do not feel safe in returning – even if there were a home to return to.
- £2000 will build a two bedroom house for a survivor and her family.