There is nothing worse than the loss of your parents. Now imagine losing both. What would you have left? Now imagine this situation with a child, what if it is a new born? Can you imagine never having someone to take care of you? I know it is a difficult thought and this is where the most challenge comes in doing our job. Imagine seeing these kids every day and not being able to do anything. This is also the reason why our volunteers shower more and more support to these kids and give them the loving and caring that they really deserve.

What really happens? When we at the Relief India Trust are contacted, we are informed either of a kid who is orphaned or we get a call about an HIV positive woman who is pregnant. HIV positive mothers can successfully carry a baby to term and the child would be healthy. However the earlier we get details on the situation the faster we would be able to start the medication. This medication will ensure that the baby remains healthy and in many cases the baby is born HIV negative. This is why we need to take immediate action.

We, at Relief India Trust believe in fast action; however, what is important is the fact that we are informed at the earliest. This is the reason why we have people manning our telephone lines at all hours. Just to make sure that we reach people who need us on time. This also helps us set up a better contingency plan and helps plan the actions better. We would have to assess the condition of the mother and then take an informed decision on what is required from our end. Sometimes the mother’s condition is so bad that she may not survive childbirth, and in some cases the child may be dead.

The reason why these cases are very important is because of the way they need to be handled. The volunteers at the Relief India Trust are trained specially to handle these cases. The way the training is done is that we hand pick the volunteer for this kind of work. This is not easy, the volunteers need to know a lot of things and need a lot of training. So for this kind of work we chose a volunteer who is already experienced in the field.

With AIDS children what we find most difficult is the society’s norm. People are scared about contracting AIDS

and so it is difficult to get people to volunteer for this line of work. Once, we get all of this out and volunteers come in we understand it is difficult and so we train our volunteers to handle everything. We also ensure that they get enough breaks to ensure that they do not drain out entirely. This is important as the volunteers have to be strong to do this line of work. Anyone who has done work in this line, we request you to come forward and helps us out.