Report on supporting care providers to improve lives of children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS

This report presents the findings of a study on how communities lead the response to orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) in different regions of Malawi - focusing on the districts of Kasungu and Lilongwe in the central region, Mulanje in the south, and Mzimba in the north. These are districts where Plan Malawi implements OVC care and support interventions.

The overall goal of the study was to determine the effectiveness of support being provided by care givers to the well-being of OVC made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. Its specific objectives were to determine:

• the scope of existing responses to address the needs of orphans and other vulnerable children
• the role different agencies play within communities to support vulnerable populations and develop prioritisation of responses and how these can be improved
• the capacity of care providers to address the needs of children and the relationships between care providers and service delivery organisations
  
• the local planning, monitoring and evaluation processes that can be established to improve programme quality in terms of sustainability, effectiveness and accountability and which can support and expand response bases.

The study was premised on the assumption that care providers implement a range of mechanisms available to support OVC. The range of support given varies from needs-based welfare responses to comprehensive interventions that have a long lasting impact on the children. Thus, it is possible that some of the locally existing institutions have the potential to provide meaningful sustainable care leading to improvements in the quality of life of the OVC.