Social safety nets, HIV/AIDS & orphans and vulnerable children in Quthing, Lesotho: an examination of coping strategies and how communities survive

Abstract

Abstract This dissertation explores four key questions within the HIV/AIDS paradigm1 and the impact it is having on orphans and vulnerable children in the district of Quthing, Lesotho. These questions are: What is the status of social safety nets? How are communities surviving with the growing number of orphans and vulnerable children? What might be the early warning signs of community breaking points as a new category of child-headed household emerges? What are the human drivers of the pandemic in terms of behaviour and attitudes towards HIV/AIDS, orphans and vulnerable children, and sex; and in terms of reasons why people are not heeding the warning signs and adopting behaviour change? The findings of the dissertation reveal that communities are overwhelmed with the demands placed on them to support orphans and vulnerable children to the point where culture, traditions, and society at large are showing early warning signs of irreversible strain. Despite the efforts of government, donors, the humanitarian sector and the communities themselves, awareness of HIV/AIDS is not translating into behavioural change and as such the spread of the virus continues unabated among the youngest and most vulnerable groups. 1 The set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline. ii