Feature

In Tanzania, Pact supports children living with HIV by helping their families earn stable income

January 20, 2021

Hosea Samola is a father of two, including a child who is HIV-positive. He lives in Sumbawanga, a remote village in Tanzania’s Southern Highlands, where he supports his family by farming.

“It had been difficult to improve my farming since I used elementary tools,” he says. “I could not afford advanced tools because my earnings were too little.”

Things changed when Hosea received a horticulture start-up kit from the USAID Kizazi Kipya project. Implemented by Pact and other partners, Kizazi Kipya, or New Generation, is improving the lives of vulnerable Tanzanian children affected by HIV. In addition to improved access to health and HIV services for children, the project works to help their caregivers and families gain better financial resources. When families are less economically vulnerable, they are better able to provide nutritious food and medical care for their children, which is especially critical for children who are living with HIV.

With better tools, Hosea has been able to produce more crops and increase his income. “I see my life changing from this point,” he said. His family is one of more than 130 in the Southern Highlands that have received business start-up kits through Kizazi Kipya. The kits go to caregivers of children under 5, orphans and other vulnerable children who are HIV-positive.

Besides horticulture kits, Kizazi Kipya is also distributing food vending kits – another livelihood option that is relatively easy to undertake in Tanzania. Horticulture kits include sprayer pumps, hand hoes, water cans and gumboots, while food vending kits include tea flasks, chairs, cooking pots, water glasses, cooking stoves, tables, cups, plates, buckets and spoons.

“Now I can start my dream business of food vending, and through it, I can support my 4-year-old child,” one caregiver said.  

To ensure that the kits help families build sustainable businesses and income, Kizazi Kipya also provides recipients with mentorship and linkages to business support services.

On the left, Hosea Samola works his farm. On the right, Thomas Jumanne Sizya uses his new electrical skills. (Credit: USAID Kizazi Kipya)

Kizazi Kipya also uses other livelihoods interventions to help reduce children’s vulnerability to HIV, including helping children to leave behind work at mine sites – one of the world’s worst forms of child labor. Because children often engage in mining out of economic necessity, Pact works to help older child miners find alternative sources of income that are safer.

Thomas Jumanne Sizya is one of them. At 16, he found himself the head of his family. Desperate to provide for them, he left school and began working in mining. Kizazi Kipya connected him with a vocational training scholarship to study electrical engineering. After graduation, he received a start-up kit to launch a small electrical services and supply business. Thomas also installed electrical wiring in his home, and he now earns enough to meet his family’s basic needs. He hopes to one day own an electric appliances shop.

“All that I have turned out to be is because of the Kizazi Kipya project,” he says. “My life has changed.”

Learn more about Kizazi Kipya at pactworld.org/tanzania.