ORIGIN & APPROACH


OSA was created by returned Peace Corps Volunteers in 2004 with a goal to assist the growing number of HIV/AIDS orphans in Malawi. Seeking to create LASTING and SUSTAINABLE improvement, OSA broke from the typical, directive approach of [most] larger aid agencies, and instead took a hands-on approach, recognizing that each CBO does best with a program created to fit the skill set and resources of each community. The people of the community are best suited to determine how to better their lives. They
simply need the tools to do so.

Our program provides those tools by investing in the people and their skills through trainings selected by OSA and the CBOs. This skill development permanently increases community capacity, which in turn increases and sustains the protection and positive development of orphans and vulnerable children – all while empowering the most marginalized and affected groups in rural Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda .

Because OSA is firmly committed to sustainable solutions, each CBO with whom we partner assesses its needs and resources with OSA to determine what income generating activity (IGA), will best utilize those resources and how to address those needs. Each CBO IGA committee then develops a proposal for funding that IGA. The IGA is built by the community, and milestones, outputs, and impact are assessed and reported on by the IGA committees using Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation. This practice demands the ongoing input of the community, and thus places the community in the driver’s seat of its own development. All of the revenue earned from each IGA goes directly toward continually improved care of the community’s Orphans and Vulnerable Children.  We look for CBOs:1. whose collective volunteer base represents an active and involved community,
2. whose work is addressing a pronounced need in a given community,
3. whose strategic operations reflect a comprehensive care model for OVC,
4. who have the capacity to develop sustainable IGA’s
5. and whose scalability potential is intrinsic.

 

Trainings and subsequent work as well as the IGA process prepares the community members to deal with – both methodologically and financially – the hundreds of thousands of OVC that have and will continue to result fromHIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. OSA CBO members combine their skills to create other activities aimed at supporting OVC such as:

>OVC care classes
>Children’s corners
>Child based care centers
>Feeding programs.

 

 

The OSA Approach thus directly decreases dependency on aid, improves the status of OVC, and contributes to both the immediate and long-term social stabilization of Community Based Organizations in Malawi and beyond . This is measured partly in the increased community awareness of and effort in preventing HIV/AIDS among OSA’s community based organizations, as well as in the vastly improved local capacity in those same CBOs for sustained OVC care and development in the absence of external aid.

“Orphan Support Africa is poised to represent a major shift in humanitarian aid, specifically in the field of OVC care for HIV/AIDS victims. Its philosophy is based in
knowing, honoring, and following the traditions and systems that are endemic to the areas in which we work. This basic premise of respect puts the power in the hands of
those most able, most invested, and most eager to bring change where and how it is most needed and effective. This provides OSA and its supporters the opportunity to
be true agents of SUSTAINABLE change through empowerment.” – Tanya Prime, US Director