Another day and another person inquiring about volunteer opportunities! It’s so wonderful that so many people are developing an interest in giving back!

Here’s another reason why it’s so important to travel the world and understand the problems facing other cultures simply due to a lack of nourishment and the devastation of disease (article I wrote below). In Namibia, I had the opportunity to see, firsthand, a program that is saving lives using just a simple powder to provide a day’s worth of nourishment to children living with HIV/AIDS. Amazingly, it’s easier for these children to get antiviroal drugs than proper nutrition!

July 2009: by me:

In some of the most remote and poor regions of Namibia, people are receiving nourishment, supplies and life-saving resources through three unique programs that are literally delivering God’s love to the less fortunate in the form of baby formula, daily nutrient supplements and pre-school education.

The baby formula program delivers greatly needed and expensive formula to babies whose mothers are HIV+, so as to prevent newborns from contracting the disease. The program has helped keep 60 babies healthy.

As part of the successful treatment of HIV/AIDS, a nutritious diet along with ante-viral drugs are the cornerstones to helping victims achieve a fuller life, but for those living in poverty, meals, much less healthy meals, are hard to come by, which is what the EPAP program delivers – vital nutrients in the form of an easy to mix and administer drink that is taken once daily. Delivered to 350 people each day, this program has helped sustain and lengthen the lives of both young and old living with HIV/AIDS.

Education is key to curbing the rise of HIV/AIDS in Namibia, but in the poorest areas, where schools are many kilometers away and hundreds of children are left orphaned by HIV/AIDS, school is not a reality, which is why the pre-school program started in three of the poorest areas of Namibia – to educate, protect and save these orphans from the streets. Ileni Tulikwafeni (meaning, “let’s help each other”) is both a community center and pre-school serving some of the poorest of the poor living in the Five Rand Camp outside of Okahjana. The center provides education about ways to prevent HIV/AIDS and provides meals to over 500 children per day, 5 days a week, and for most of the children, this meal is the only one they can be assured to receive that day.

Hundreds of lives are being saved and changed through three simple programs that deliver the most basic of human needs – baby formula, daily vitamins/nutrients and pre-school education. Through these three programs, hope is being delivered to some of the most forgotten and hopeless areas of Namibia.