Christian World Outreach has been in Zimbabwe helping children left orphaned by AIDS with their Mobile Orphanage programme, reports Mission Network News.

|PIC1|CWO’s Greg Yoder described the organisation’s Mobile Orphanage as being more like a foster care programme.

“We’re not trying to bring children to a centre and then out of their communities, but be able to keep them in their communities,” he said.

“We go to them and try to work with school teachers and community leaders and churches in the community to care for the children who have been orphaned by AIDS.”

CWO is asking for people to donate just 21 USD a month to support each child. The money will go toward their school fees, basic school supplies, uniform, and food kits.

|TOP|“We try to supplement the food that the guardians are already giving them to try to support people physically for taking care of these kids,” said Yoder.

The CWO also runs camps for AIDS-orphaned children.

“The camps are held for a couple of reasons,” said Yoder. “One is to introduce them to Christ and to provide spiritual teaching. The other is to just help them interact with other children from the community.”

Yoder added: “They’re just children who are taking care of themselves and taking care of other children.”

In 2003 the number of children orphaned by AIDS stood at 980,000 or 78 per cent of all orphans in the country.

World AIDS Day will be held on Thursday to rally people in the fight against the disease and to highlight the urgent need for a response to the 15 million children expected to be orphaned by 2015.