Our Approach

Comprehensive Care

What do children need to become healthy and productive adults?

Many people and organizations offering support to orphans and vulnerable children are only able to provide one or two areas of care that children need—such as shelter and education, or nutrition and health. However, children need a wide range of support to help them grow into healthy and productive young adults.

Bantwana's comprehensive care approach helps communities consider all the elements necessary to ensure the healthy development of children, including:

• Education: Keeping children in school—with a specific focus on girls
• Health (including HIV prevention): Ensuring access to primary health care and access to HIV medications, if needed
• Livelihoods and Economic Security: Helping adolescents develop meaningful skills to support themselves over time
• Child Protection: Helping keep children safe from abuse, neglect, and exploitation
• Psychosocial Support: Helping children and caregivers cope with anxiety, anger, depression, and despair related to loss
• Nutrition: Ensuring children have an adequate, nutritional diet
• Shelter: Ensuring a safe, dry, and sanitary place to live
• Legal Rights: Ensuring children understand and are able to act on legal rights to inheritance, land, and financial support from the government

Because small organizations are unable to provide all the services necessary, Bantwana links them to other providers (including government agencies or NGOs) which offer such assistance, so that the full range of holistic care is available to children.

How We’re Different

Bantwana’s comprehensive approach is based on the assumption that local communities are best positioned to care for orphans and vulnerable children over the long term.

There are many well-intentioned efforts to strengthen community support for OVC; but few use Bantwana’s consistent follow-up approach that enables frontline organizations to absorb and apply new skills and strategies in ways that improve quality, expand reach and, ultimately, help them progress toward sustainability. Bantwana’s side-by-side focused approach nurtures local partners to encourage innovation while promoting a culture of accountability and high performance that strengthens the capacity of organizations over time.