Orange Babies creative in beating HIV

In the Netherlands, we have countless foundations, charities, and companies that want to do something for someone else. For example, 50.000 institutions with ANBI status are registered. In this way, the Public Benefit Entity contributes to the public benefit. This can be a good cause, a cultural or a scientific institution. Here you can choose where you want to spend your money. To give money to all these charities is not feasible. At least not for me, unfortunately, I haven’t found a money tree on my back yet. I think it’s important to support a charity in any way I can and I’ve been trying to figure this out for a while. Via, via I ended up at Orange Babies. I had heard of this foundation before, but what they did was not clear to me. You can support this charity in the form of a donation, but there are many more possibilities of how you can become actively involved with  Orange Babies.

Pregnant and AIDS

Orange Babies is the idea of Baba Sylla, who grew up in Senegal. In 1998 he visited his family in Senegal. During his visit, a pregnant woman knocked on his father’s door. She had AIDS and was pregnant and asked for help. Baba advised his father to say no. The man was 91 and had already taken care of 47 people. Back in the Netherlands, Baba felt guilty and he felt he had to make up for it.

Every 16 seconds

Together with John Kattenberg and Stef Bakker, Baba founded the Orange Babies foundation in 1999, to prevent babies infected with HIV from being born. Because every 16 seconds a person is still infected with HIV. Orange Babies offers help to HIV-infected pregnant women, children infected with HIV and they offer help to the social environment in which these women and children find themselves. HIV is a virus that can ultimately cause AIDS. Your immune system no longer works properly, your body is getting weaker and eventually, you can die from it without treatment.

Improvement

I found and still find it bizarre that a disease that is so easy to control is such a huge problem in South Africa and elsewhere. No more HIV-infected babies are born in the Netherlands, but in South Africa, this is still the order of the day. In the areas where Orange Babies is active, a clear improvement can be seen!

They are doing a fantastic job and I am proud and grateful that I was able to be part of this amazing charity.

The work of Orange Babies

• Medical care and HIV testing: Mobile Health Units drive past villages to explain to the population about the dangers of HIV and to test them for this virus.
• Information and prevention
• Accommodation, food, and clothing: on a busy day in the Lehae-area, more than 1000 people come to the community center for a meal.
• Education, sports and games
• Empowerment and microcredit