Kidzpositive receives support from Rebosis Property Fund

The move has forced organisations such as Kidzpositive to plead with South African corporates to increase their funding, with one of the country's leading property funds, Rebosis, stepping in to host a major fundraising drive.

Launched in the early 2000s, Kidzpositive now assists more than 3,000 children living with HIV and Aids in the Western Cape through a combination of counselling, therapy and early childhood development interventions.

According to the organisation's chief operating officer, Ian Miller, a lack of adequate government funding and a decrease in global attention on the spread of HIV/Aids in the country is having potentially disastrous consequences.

New infections

"HIV sadly is still the number one cause of deaths in South Africa, mostly due to lack of lifestyle skills and proper counselling and education around the virus," said Miller. "Great work is being done to prevent children being born HIV positive; however, we are picking up that new infections are continuing due to new mothers not being educated around vertical transfusion."

Hospitals and clinics focussed mostly on the health aspect of patients, Miller said, adding that issues such as child development and counselling falls outside what the government funds and where children born with HIV are concerned.

Rebosis Property Fund spokesperson, Deborah Bailey, said it was the responsibility of South African businesses to increase their support for such community-minded organisations. "Community-minded support is a very important part of our business model, which is why we are throwing our resources behind a major fundraising initiative for Kidzpositive, which takes the form of a corporate golf day this year," she said.

Continued education

Rebosis has donated in excess of R1.5m to 13 various charitable organisations during 2015 as part of their corporate social investment programme, of which Kidzpositive is a recipient. "We will continue to drive efforts in education, health, job creation, entrepreneurship, income generation, as well as other areas, in the coming years," said Bailey.

"Aid organisations such as ourselves are desperate for more partners such as Rebosis, as what we are finding is that companies abroad which have been staunch funders in the past think that the HIV/Aids pandemic is under control. But just because the government is dispensing anti-retroviral drugs does not mean the crisis is over," Miller said.

"We are finding that without the adequate counselling, HIV/Aids patients on anti-retroviral drugs are ending their treatment when they feel better, which can have potentially disastrous consequences for the country's HIV infection rate," he concluded.