Source: Times of Zambia
CHILDHOOD is supposed to be a fulfilling and exciting stage and an experience that should hold memories to be cherished in one's life.

Children maybe a handful to bring up, but all in all, most of what they demand centres around love, protection of their fundamental human rights and provision of basic needs by their parents or guardians.

However, this is not so much the case with many children such as Mutinta Malambo (not her real name), a 12-year-old girl from Chief Chikanta's area in Kalomo district.

For Mutinta, it was as if being both hearing and speech impaired was not enough of an ordeal to handle, that she suffered sexual abuse at the hands of an older man who took advantage of her disabilities.

The long years of sexual abuse has resulted in her being diagnosed HIV positive. The healthy looking Mutinta who was being looked after by her grandmother, after the demise of her parents, is now in Grade six, at Chikanta Basic School.

She was identified as a vulnerable child by World Vision Zambia (WVZ) and child focused organisation, which has granted her a full scholarship, through to her tertiary education.

Matildah Mukombo is the WVZ Twachiyanda area development program (ADP) development facilitator for the HIV and AIDS project. Mrs Mukombo explains that, although young Mutinta is not yet on anti-retro viral therapy (ART), she has been placed on what is referred to as the pre-ART programe.

"This entails her coming to the clinic where her CD4 is monitored and in the event that she develops any opportunistic infections (OI's), they are treated immediately.

We came to learn about Mutinta, through our community based health support groups, who identified her as being very vulnerable.

This was after Mutinta's repeated visits to Chilala rural health centre where she was presented with different types of OI's," she said.

The clinical officer, who attended to Mutinta, suspected that she could possibly be HIV positive and when the test was carried out, it confirmed the suspicions- she tested positive in 2010.

When she was assessed further, it was discovered that she was also presented with some OI's that were sexually transmitted.

This prompted further clinical observations that pointed towards possible sexual abuse.

It was very difficult to extract any meaningful information from Mutinta because of her speech and hearing disability, but it was later established she was repeatedly sexually abused by an older man from within her village," Mrs Mukombo explained.

Unfortunately, this perpetrator is still on the loose while the young Mutinta will be forced to live not only with a life threatening condition, but also with indelible damages, which she has to live with for the rest of her life.

"After we made our own assessments, we discovered that she was depressed and had even stopped going to school, largely because of financial inadequacies on the part of her grandmother, who was unable to raise enough resources to send her to school," Mrs Mukombo revealed.

WVZ is highly impressed with Mutinta's academic performance and her results indicate that she was fourth best in a class of over 60 pupils.

"Her academic performance has been exemplary. WVZ arranged a teacher skilled in attending to children with special needs and although Mutinta attends class separately from other children at the school, she is allowed to mingle with her peers, just so that she blends and feels part of society," she explained.

Mrs Mukombo explained that having taken into consideration that Mutinta comes from a very vulnerable household, her grandmother who is looking after her and other orphans, was empowered with an oxen and a sewing machine as a way to mitigate the levels of vulnerability.

"Now Mutinta's grandmother is able to generate some income from the oxen and the sewing machine and she is able to use part of the money for food, clothing and providing some necessities for Mutinta and the other children," Mrs Mukombo explains.

For Mutinta, WVZ has gone a step further by ensuring that she is provided with all the school requirements and that she is able to access the much needed health services, to keep her healthy.

Mutinta is among a population of children living with HIV in Chief Chikanta's area, 82 of whom are currently enrolled on the ARV programme. Services such as monitoring of CD4 count, have been made more accessible, through Chilala rural health center (RHC), funded by WVZ.

Chilala is the only RHC in the entire Chikanta area, and it caters for a population of about 10,050 people , and the multi-million CD4 count machine, the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT and the voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) centres, were all constructed and handed over to the Government by WVZ.

Had WVZ not installed some services such as the CD4 count machine, ART and PMTCT centres at Chilala, people like Mutinta and many others would have been forced to cover distances of over 50 kilometers some of them on foot, to Macha Mission hospital and they would have to incur costs such as transport, food and other incidentals, just to access one of their basic human rights-the right to good health.

Today Chilala RHC attends to between 100 to 130 cases of ART for both new and already existing clients, everyday.

Some of the challenges faced by the RHC include lack of adequate skilled manpower to man the CD4 count machine, the pharmacy and the laboratory, a situation that has forced staff at the health centre to improvise by training tow of its six staff to run the laboratory, CD4 and the dispensary of ART and other drugs.

Clinical officer at Chilala RHC Kikopa Mwewa has an appeal to both the Government and WVZ.

"Our appeal to WVZ is to assist us construct more staff houses, so that we can have a basis upon which to call on the government to deploy more staff to the area.

However, we are grateful to WVZ who have offered technical and material support towards the training of community based agents for PMTCT and hygiene promotion," Mr Mwewa explains.

Previously, Chilala RHC used to take blood samples from patients and send them to Lusaka for CD4 analysis.

Small as the health center may sound, the impact that Chilala RHC has had on the community in Chikanta area is great.

It is the only source of hope for people of Chikanta and surrounding areas, without which, people like Mutinta may not have lived long enough to tell their success stories, beyond the series of misfortunes she suffered along the way.

Many people in Chikanta area are largely dependent on agriculture as a nsource of livelihoods, and for those who are afflicted by different ailments HIV inclusive, most of their productive hours would have been consumed in seeking for the much needed health services.

First Lady Christine Kaseba has taken up a leading role in campaigning against sexual vilence and all forms of abuse of women and the girl-child.

For children like Mutinta and many others in Chikanta area, it is hard to imagine life without Chilala RHC, which is the only health center in an area of over 50,000 Square kilometres.

• Zambia