Daniel, Carlos and Lucas Manhiasa in their Habitat home in Xai-Xai, Mozambique.

Every day, more than 7,000 Africans die from AIDS, many of them parents. In 2010, it was estimated that 18 million African children under the age of 18 had lost either their mother or father or both parents to AIDS.

Many orphans and vulnerable children are adopted by families with very limited financial means. The ability to afford a modest loan has always been part of the Habitat for Humanity family selection criteria, but in order to serve those severely impacted by this disease Habitat had to come up with a greater range of housing and financing solutions. These new housing solutions became our Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) programme.

For extremely vulnerable and poor families, we no longer require the ability to repay as part of the homeowner selection criteria. We also modified the sweat equity requirement to suit the OVC program so that neither under-aged orphans nor seriously ill adults would be required to perform manual labour. For example, in some cases a relative performs the sweat equity on behalf of the ill parent, and a teenager may be asked to help prepare food for the construction workers.

Those families who have the ability to pay for a small loan are asked to pay it back, but the loan is structured to be affordable and house costs have been greatly reduced.

The overall objective of our OVC programme is to not simply build houses for orphans and vulnerable children, but to significantly reduce their vulnerability by increasing their security and access to basic necessities and services.

To learn more about our OVC approach and standards click here