Few countries in recent history have undergone the scale of change that South Africa has since 1994. From apartheid to democracy, from isolation to global player, from closed to an open economy and from rampant to controlled inflation, South Africa has transformed from insolvent to solvent and is suddenly one of the world’s fastest growing tourism destinations. Despite major and continuing overhauls in the education, housing, electrification, water, media and telecommunication sectors, huge sectors of the population already disfigured by apartheid still face a critical shortage of basic services and sub-standard living conditions. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has descended on the country with those people least able to fight it being the most affected.

Nearly half of South Africa’s 44.8 million people live below the poverty line, and the country has more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other country in the world. South Africa faces some very difficult and challenging problems as it comes to terms with the AIDS pandemic. The effect on the population is devastating and this is particularly evident with the rapidly climbing numbers of children orphaned through AIDS. By 2010 it is estimated that the province of KwaZulu-Natal (the region most affected by the pandemic), will have 500, 000 orphans.  

Urbanisation has created a housing crisis around South Africa’s cities. Today 21 million South Africans live in towns and cities. By the year 2010, this is expected to increase to 43.7 million people. This urbanisation is driven by extreme poverty in rural areas with people flocking to the cities in search of employment. Vast informal settlements or townships surrounding its modern cities have rapidly become the most visual expression of urban poverty - thousands of people living without adequate services in overcrowded conditions in shacks that have been pieced together with cardboard, corrugated iron (tin) and scrap wood.

 
Effects on the population

The orphan crisis is beginning to take its toll on communities affected by poverty and illness as they come to terms with trying to take care of the children who, following the deaths of their parents are left to live in destitute conditions.

Many families lack the ability to sustain themselves due to illiteracy, lack of knowledge and skills and high unemployment rates effecting higher malnutrition levels amongst already immune compromised children. The lack of access to clean drinkable water and the high incidence of HIV infections have also exacerbated an already intolerable situation. Women and children
especially are vulnerable to illnesses and disease. Families are trapped in a daily struggle to survive amid sub-standard, often inhumane living conditions. Poverty housing is overcrowded, promotes ill health and impairs children's ability to succeed in school. It erodes hope and self-worth. It is demeaning and keeps poor people poor. Your participation in building a new home can help to provide security and break the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that inadequate housing creates.

Within such communities children are rendered vulnerable in a variety of ways, including the loss and lack of material security (household income, security of tenure, shelter and physical protection), the lack of food security resulting in hunger and an increased risk of malnutrition, an increased vulnerability to exploitation (violence, sexual abuse, child labour, etc) and an increased likelihood of absenteeism, failure and premature exiting from formal schooling.

When male heads-of-household die from AIDS, houses may be sold for cash, grabbed and taken away from the needy family, or abandoned as families are torn apart by AIDS. Surviving widows and orphans may be abused – financially, physically and sexually – if they try to maintain the property, or find themselves living on the street, with all the risks of homelessness. Operational research by the Population Council has shown that orphans are better able to cope with their situation when parents were able to plan for the future by taking steps to select guardians, to protect the inheritance of their children, and to discuss with their children about AIDS illness and death. Protecting the family house is important for the psychological and physical well-being of children. This is especially true for widows and girl orphans, who are both more likely to have their property ‘grabbed’ and are at a higher risk of HIV infection.

 There is a critical shortage of functional housing - unsanitary, temporary housing conditions, such as mud floors and walls and leaking roofs encourages the spread of illness and disease and threatens the psychological and physical well-being of their occupants. Mud huts or shacks have leaking roofs, crumbling walls, poor sanitation (generally pit latrines), no water or electricity, damp walls and poor ventilation. Not only are these conditions conducive to the spread of the HIV virus and other diseases, but they significantly reduce the likelihood that those who are infected will be able to remain healthy for any length of time.

Children living without guardians have special needs, some of which may be met by providing shelter in housing clusters to facilitate care by community volunteers. The “Children on the Brink” (UNAIDS, UNICEF, USAID) report on AIDS orphaning concludes, “Orphanages are not appropriate as a first-line response to the AIDS crisis.” Orphanages require on-going, high levels of expenditure that are beyond the capacity of communities. Additionally, major welfare organisations have found that orphans benefit greatly from the care, personal attention, and social connections that they can receive in family or community care.  

 


That is for any view which initially offered with regard to $210, the same as $1, six hundred these days. Regular call rolex replica sale tend to be less expensive, although not inexpensive something in the rolex replica sale towards the final types of the actual ref. 6265 will definitely cost close to $40, 000, as rolex replica uk as well as 6270 get public sale costs to the hundreds of thousands. The actual fortunate couple of which experienced an earlier Rolex Daytona saved for that much better a part of fifty hublot replica uk a hundred years possess definitely received the actual jackpot it's difficult to think which several invaluable rolex replica sitting within retailers' home windows provided ten years. Scaled-down finances continue to be crafted with regard to, nevertheless, using the rolex replica Zenith-powered ref. 16520 beginning to produce the subsequent associated with its. Using the ref. 116520 changing this within 2000, the actual 1988 update is actually beginning in the future in order to collector's heaven.