CERI helps AIDS orphans cope with loss

A box filled with a parent’s written stories, photos, letters and keepsakes provides a valuable tool to help AIDS orphans in Africa deal with loss.

Children’s Emergency Relief International Executive Director Dearing Garner recently took part in a three-day meeting in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, where the focus was all about building resiliency and healing the emotional wounds of children orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

CERI, the Houston-based interna-tional arm of Baptist Child & Family Services, works with the Sinomlando Center of Oral History and Memory Work at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, on its memory box project.

The memory box methodology works with dying parents and their children to preserve memories, build the children’s resilience and nurture their sense of identity.

A grandmother sits with her grandchild, an orphan of Africa’s AIDS epidemic, who clings to his memory box.

A child’s “River of Life” picture became part of the memory box process.

“Many grandmothers, aunts and uncles told me about the difference our memory box project is making in the lives of their young family members, who they’ve taken to caring for after their parents passed away,” Garner said. “It’s a remarkable feeling to hear how our efforts are truly bringing about peace and hope in times of tremendous sadness.”

The memory box project is being expanded across South Africa in partnership with CERI and with funding from the United States Agency for International Development, as part of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Since 2008, the memory box program has provided training in psycho-social rehabilitation to more than 2,400 HIV-prevention and treatment caseworkers in six South African provinces. 

“It is our hope that, given the tremendous success we’ve seen, this project will continue to grow and lift up more orphaned children through-out South Africa who are coping with the loss of their parents,” Garner said.