A network of 30 volunteers in Cameroon provides help and support for HIV
positive children and mothers by teaching them how to cope with the challenges
of living with the virus.

YAOUNDE, CAMEROON UNICEF -
As 32-year old Jacqueline sits on the tattered couch in her two-room
home, she shares memories of an earlier time. Thumbing through old photo
albums she reminisces about another life when she and her husband worked in
South Africa and dreamed of a very different future.

Now, HIV-positive and having already lost a daughter to the virus, she
struggles to raise her two children alone in Cameroon's capital city Yaounde.
Her older son Giaum, now five, is also HIV-positive.

"He started being sick now. So they brought him to me there. He
was already sick so they were thinking it was malnutrition and all those types
of things. Meanwhile he was also infected but we did not know," said
Jacqueline.

After months of worrying about her son's health and not getting much
support at the local clinic, she decided to go to the Chantal Biya Foundation,
a hospital for children that's supported by the UN Children's Agency, UNICEF
and other partners that she had seen advertised on television.

"I decided to go to the Chantal Biya Foundation. They put him on
treatment. Since then he is not having problems again," said Jacqueline.

Giaum now takes his medication twice daily and visits the foundation
for a check up every three months.

But he is one of the lucky ones. Access to treatment is limited for
Cameroon's estimated 45,000 HIV-positive children, especially in remote areas.

"He is fine, very intelligent, in placement he is from one to
five. He is most brilliant child in the class. Very intelligent," said
Jacqueline.

Jacqueline's younger daughter Alexis has tested negative for HIV. She
was born when Jacqueline was already on treatment and had access to services
to prevent mother-to-child transmission while pregnant.

It was also at the foundation that Jacqueline met Genevieve, the
president of an association of positive mothers. This network of 30 volunteers
provides an emotional safety net to cope with the challenges of living with
HIV.

"She has been a good sister. A good everything. She is just like.
In short there is no secret I can hide from her. She is just like my
sister," said Jacqueline.

The women volunteer at the hospital where they counsel families who
have just found out their status, and often act as a substitute family for
those who are abandoned because of the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS. It
aims to give the women purpose as well as a social network.

"We give advice about their overall well-being; we tell them they
must be sane in their head, their heart and their body. We tell mothers to be
positive in life. We tell mothers how to live with HIV, how to announce it to
relatives regardless of stigma, and how to overcome stigma and
discrimination," said Ongyateyaye.

In much of sub-Saharan Africa, it is women who often carry the enormous
burden of the epidemic. Not only are they at greater risk of infection but
also bear the responsibility for caring for children and keeping families
intact.

Of the estimated 5.1 percent of the population infected with HIV in
Cameroon, 60 percent are thought to be female.