"Living with Slim" and "The Blood of Yingzhou District" - Two pediatric HIV documentaries worth a peek

In the documentary"Living with Slim", seven Malawian single- and double-orphaned children talk about what it’s like to be HIV positive and about their dreams for the future.

Conservatively, there are 550,000 AIDS orphans in Malawi. (www.avert.org)

(Copies of "Slim" available for $25 from Sam Kauffmann (samfilmtv@yahoo.com).)

"The Blood of Yingzhou District", a film about Chinese AIDS orphans, won the 2007 Academy Award for best documentary short film. The 39-minute film records the lives of a group of HIV-positive children whose parents died from AIDS-related causes.

Conservatively, there are 76,000 AIDS orphans in China, and the number will increase to 260,000 by 2010.

Swaziland, where I live, has a million inhabitants and 70,000 orphans. In 2010, there will be around 120,000. (See my Nov 2006 entry, "Parentless children with nothing to lose" for more on this.)

By the way, if you wish to support families that feed and house one or more Swazi orphans, check out the Swazi nonprofit Young Heroes. I know the folks that run it, and they apply all donations at the household level, where they are carefully monitored.

Please do give if you are so inclined.