Vana Bantwana

Nearly one in four children in Zimbabwe has lost one or both their parents; as many as 85% of these are children who lost their parents as a result of HIV and AIDS. Furthermore, an estimated 150,000 children currently live with HIV, and more than 500,000 children are estimated to be out-of-school. Adolescents and out-of-school youth often lack the skills they need to become successful adults, and as a result, they are more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

To address these critical issues, World Education is implementing its USAID/PEPFAR 5-year Vana Bantwana project, an integrated community approach designed to strengthen existing health, education, child protection, and youth and livelihoods systems at the family, community, district, and national levels. Through strengthening the social service system and local health facilities, scaling-up early childhood interventions, and providing out-of-school youth programming, youth work readiness training, gender-based violence prevention and survivor programming, and pediatric HIV testing and treatment, Vana Bantwana provides a comprehensive package of care to vulnerable children and their families. To ensure that communities are able to continue making use of these services beyond the life of the program, Vana Bantwana is strengthening a cadre of national and community-based civil society organizations to implement and manage the models of care.

Through the Vana Bantwana program, World Education is reaching more than 100,000 vulnerable children and their families in 65 districts annually with critical services.