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Every 15 seconds a child loses a mother or father to AIDS.
The mission of FXB is to fight poverty and AIDS, and support the world’s orphans and vulnerable children left in the wake of the pandemic by advocating for their needs and basic rights and providing direct support to families and communities that care for them.
Children of AIDS: The socially excluded
The poorest countries in the world are also often the hardest hit by the AIDS pandemic. In the chaos of poverty and disease, children end up neglected and abandoned when their parents fall sick. Poverty erodes the ability of grandparents, siblings, and neighbors – the social safety net that would normally be in place – to take in these children and raise them. Left without guidance and support, these children are more likely to drop out of school, to be malnourished, to lose their homes and inheritance, to be recruited into gangs or become child soldiers, to face discrimination and abuse, and to contract HIV themselves. As a result, millions of children face lives of exploitation and hopelessness.
Investing in Families. Saving Children.
Many organizations offer temporary assistance or piecemeal responses, sending aid during emergencies or providing new books when children are too hungry or ill to attend school. These intentions are honorable, but the cycles of poverty and HIV remain unbroken. FXB doesn’t offer charity. Instead, we strive to build a future for AIDS orphans and vulnerable children by reintegrating them into stable families and societies. FXB believes that the best way to assist orphaned and vulnerable children is to empower their families and communities to escape poverty permanently.
We provide a comprehensive package of support and training to those most in need to equip them with the tools to achieve improved health, as well as social and economic independence. Given this boost, families are able to support themselves and the children in their care in the long-term.
What makes FXB unique?
- Experience: FXB Founder and President Albina du Boisrouvray has worked in the field for decades and was one of the first advocates of AIDS orphans in the early days of the pandemic. When the world was watching with alarm as a fatal new disease spread across the globe in the late 1980s, FXB recognized that the problem transcended adults infected with the virus and was leaving behind millions of orphaned and vulnerable children, many of whom were also HIV positive.
- Grassroots: FXB initiatives are adapted to specific settings and embedded in the communities they serve, with special attention given to individuals’ needs and to bringing communities together to fight stigma and abuse.
- Health and Human Rights: At FXB, our global strategy is the practical application of the inextricable link between health and human rights. We believe that protecting the world’s most neglected children is the most urgent human development goal.
- Self-sufficiency: FXB does not foster dependency on aid. Instead, by empowering children, young people, and parents with skills, small business grants, education, and basic services, FXB helps children and families to thrive permanently. An external study in Rwanda found that 86% of FXB participants were able to meet the needs of the children in their care by the program’s end and for years afterward, and an assessment of FXB in Uruguay found that the employment rate among participants was double that of the general population.
- Partnership: We work with many governments and international agencies, as well as local mayors, parliamentarians, non-governmental organizations, communities, and FXB program participants themselves.
- Cost-effective: FXB’s structure is free of top heavy bureaucracies and related expenses, and our fundraising and administrative costs are funded by a private grant. As a result, FXB is able to mobilize quickly and efficiently in order to direct your contributions to the children and families who need it most.
- Local Investment and Knowledge: The FXB staff has profound experience in fighting poverty and AIDS in their countries. Almost 100% of our program staff is recruited locally.
Photo: Alain Wicht / FXB South Africa