HIV/AIDS Pandemic

Like most countries in the Sub-Saharan region, Zambia has been adversely affected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic. AIDS has devastated Zambia’s most productive generation. Many widowed grandmothers and orphaned youth have the responsibility of housing and providing support for orphaned children. Food insecurity is also affecting households across the country.

World Vision in Zambia

World Vision has been working in Zambia since 1981, and now assists more than 3 million people in all nine provinces of the country with 36 community-based Area Development Programmes (ADPs) and targeted emergency relief projects. World Vision works in partnership with government, other NGOs, and churches. Today, about 25% of Zambia's people are benefiting from this work.

World Vision in Zambia is also the lead agency in the RAPIDS consortium of organisations that include CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Africare, Expanded Church Response and the Salvation Army. RAPIDS is an initiative under the United States President’s Emergency Plan for HIV and AIDS Relief in Zambia and is being administered by USAID. The project budget ,totalling US$57 million, is the largest US government-funded project in Zambia for care and support of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and people living with HIV and AIDS

World Vision is also:

• working to turn the tide of stigma against HIV-affected persons through partnerships with churches and community structures to provide counselling, care and support as well as encouraging HIV testing and adherence to medical regimes for AIDS treatment.
• providing farmers – including thousands of widows and orphaned children - with seeds, tools and training in improved techniques, as well as in using trees and shrubs alongside crops to improve soil fertility.
• improving health care, particularly maternal health care, immunizing children against childhood killer diseases and training health care workers.
• helping families to diversify sources of food and income by providing cattle, goats and chickens through a livestock start-up programme.
• providing food aid to the most vulnerable, through school and emergency feeding programmes, as well as helping families affected by flooding with plastic sheeting for shelter, blankets, water containers and chlorine for water purification.
• helping with school fees, materials and training for teachers to help children get an education.
• helping communities reduce vulnerabilities and build resilience to natural disasters.