OVC Support Toolkit 

Living environments

This section looks at the different environments in which orphans and other vulnerable children live. Other sections look in detail at who provides care for these children, particularly difficult situations in which they might live and alternatives to care within the community/extended family.

Key points about the living environments for orphans and other vulnerable children are:

1. Most orphans and other vulnerable children in developing countries live in the local community with their extended families.

2. The most appropriate place for the care of orphans and other vulnerable children is within their own families and communities. Institutions are a particularly poor way of caring for children and young people.

3. The capacity of the extended family to cope is being severely tested by HIV/AIDS. Signs of this include increasing numbers of children and young people living and working on the streets and the emergence of child-headed households.

The Extended Family

Most orphans and other vulnerable children in developing countries live in the local community with their extended families. The way in which this is done varies from place to place. For example, in some places this is the responsibility of the father's family and in other places the mother's. It may vary depending on precise circumstances. In some situations, this care involves remarriage within the extended family.

There are many reasons why children and young people may be cared for by their extended family rather than by their parents. Although parental illness and death is one of them, others include parents working, particularly as migrant labourers.

Strains on the Extended Family

HIV/AIDS is placing an increasing strain on the extended family in many communities. This is because:

• The number of children requiring care and support from the extended family has increased.
• HIV/AIDS increases poverty. Poverty makes extended families less able to cope with caring for additional children.
• The number of available adults to take on caring responsibilities has been reduced through illness and death. Much of the burden of care has always fallen on women. It is now particularly falling on the very young and the old.

Some people argue that extended family structures are not as strong as they once were in many communities. Reasons for this include:

• Increasing adoption of 'Western' lifestyles, including the 'nuclear' family.
• The increasing number of people in developing countries living in cities.
• An increasing reliance on cash to buy things that are needed by the family.

Evidence for this is provided by the increasing number of children and young people who are being cared for outside the extended family. This includes children and young people living and working on the street and those living in child-headed households.

Issues about Living Environments

Particular issues about living environments are:

• Who provides care for orphans and other vulnerable children in those environments?
• Some children do not live with their extended family in a local community. The environments faced by these children and young people can be very different and challenging. They include commercial farms and other places of work, prisons and detention centres, the street and situations of conflict.
• Most countries have laws which allow the state to take over responsibility for the care of a child in particular situations. In these situations, the state may arrange for the child to be cared for outside of the extended family. These alternate forms of care include placement with another family, day centres and night shelters and residential care.

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