LUSAKA, Zambia, November 29, 2007—
“Each time I saw other children go to school when mine were not, a lump of distress would come up my throat,” says Maiwase Mbewe as she hitches up and secures her ‘chitenje,’ or wrap-around cloth, in readiness to rejoin a group of other AIDS widows in a dance of celebration.
The celebration dance of joy is part of a ceremony for a group visiting the Musanga Ward Community, a cluster of 120 villages with 1,225 households and a total population of 7,120.
A six-hour drive from Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, Musanga is a far flung remote border village, east of Chipata in the Eastern Province. It is home to the Madaliso Widows, Orphans and Vulnerable Children Community Support project.
The widows and orphans are victims of an HIV/AIDS epidemic that has swept their community. Chipata district has an estimated population of 369,443 with an HIV prevalence rate of 26.3 percent, the highest in the province. The rate far exceeds the provincial average of 13 percent and the national average of 16 percent.
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