Every Tuesday you will find 70-year-old Precious Dlamini under a tree, weighing children and babies from her local community as she monitors their health and nutrition.
Though she may not have any official qualifications to do so, Dlamini is a retired teacher, she devotes much of her time to caring for the orphaned children in her community and educating people about a healthy lifestyle.
She is just one of thousands of caregivers who have no formal training but care for the country’s increasing HIV-positive population (Swaziland has the world’s highest infection rate – almost 26 percent of the populated between the ages of 15 to 49 are HIV-positive).
But this is starting to change. Dlamini is among 122 students in Swaziland studying for a certificate in the Programme Working with Children, Families and Communities (PWCFC) in association with South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN).
The programme is run in partnership with the UKZN’s African Centre for Childhood (ACC); the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative, an organisation that provides leadership, quality technical assistance and knowledge in psychosocial care for children and youth in communities affected by HIV/AIDS.
The distance learning programme trains caregivers to understand the emotional, physical, psychological, spiritual and educational needs of children affected by HIV/AIDS and poverty.
The Jolly Good News 