Brief Activity Report - 2006:

Children’s Needs:

The CSSO responds to four thematic areas of need, namely: Education, Health, Nutrition and Psychosocial Health. The main target group is the child in the family. However, youths and adults are also helped because children are not an island.

·    Education: Several children were assisted with school requisites such as pencils, pens and other school accessories such as mathematical sets. These mainly came from JAM donations.

·     Health: Some monetary assistance was rendered to children living with HIV/AIDS for the purchase of drugs and for transportation to hospitals.

·     Nutrition: A program to give nutritional assistance to children living with HIV/AIDS has been started. Initially the children are receiving a few eggs every week. So far only two children can be supported this way. A total of 22 HIV positive children have been identified. However, funding constraints hamper any efforts to assist more than two of the children for a long period of time. The situation is serious and thus far the lives of these children are in grave danger. The CSSO is seeking funding assistance for this process so that it may be expanded to other children.

Psychosocial Health: This aspect of assistance to the children is concerned with improving the psychological and social needs of the children. It concerns matters of child abuse prevention and treatment, and mental health. Other areas of concern are issues of play, comfort and positive family relations. Not much has been done in this area in the year 2005, mainly for the reason of funding limitations. However, Thanks to JAM, in the year 2005 children of mothers in the Kabwe program received clothes. Some of the JAM donations went to two residential programs run by Jesus Cares Ministry (JCM). In Lusaka the JCM received donations of baby clothes for the children of imprisoned mothers who are in their care. The CSSO thought this was a worthy cause to support. Another donation went to the Kabwe residential program for street kids withdrawn from the streets. The JAM donations continue to bring joy to many children. The CSSO approach is to prudently spread any donations to as many children as possible.