“We all went to sleep. We expected a new president and we were anticipating a good year to come,” Moira Sires Thompson said, recalling Election Day in Eldoret, Kenya.

“We woke up to total chaos, complete chaos,” she said, sitting on the couch in her mother’s home here on Unquowa Road where she grew up.

The election was held Dec. 27 and both President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga claimed victory.

The violence and turmoil that has torn the Rift Valley apart, killing more than 1,000, began Dec. 28.

Thompson, her husband William, 7-year-old Aaron and five adopted children found themselves in the midst of a bloody war in the place they’ve called home for 12 years.

One of the women who helped the Thompsons with their group home for orphans and their non-profit agency, Hope Homes International, was of the Kikuyu tribe, not a good thing to be as civil strife broke out.

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Of some 300,000 people displaced across the country, there are about 15,000 HIV/AIDS patients and less than 2,400 are receiving anti-retroviral treatments (ARTs), according to the state-run National Aids Control Programme (NACP).

“AIDS likes crises, people are on the move, people are restless, people are worried and the danger of the spread of AIDS is very serious,” NACP chief Professor Miriam Were told journalists.

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Orphans children sleep on a single bed at the SOS Children’s Village Nairobi in Nairobi, Kenya, on Friday. Orphanages in Nairobi have taken in dozens of children who had to flee their homes amid post election violence, as relief workers try to find their parents.

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- First and foremost the basic needs of sanitary water, food, shelter. Without these necessities the children will not live to benefit from the following.

- The need to provide preventive and curative health care for orphans. The health care provider must be accessible, appropriate and affordable.

- The need to ensure that the AIDS orphans obtain basic education and that those who excel are assisted to pursue further education

- The need for a place to call home for those whose problems are more critical. In this category, will be those on special feeding program, those on treatment and girls that may be vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation, which is quite common and alarming. Most of these children have lived with very old grandparents or very large foster families.

- The need for special counseling for the AIDS orphans and for their guardians is essential for the children so that they are able to accept their new challenges and help heal the emotional and psychological wounds and for the guardians to understand the special needs and problems of AIDS orphans.

- The need for descent clothing and more so, school uniforms. This is an added benefit to help solve the problem of low self-esteem.

Years of drought have had a serious impact on the well-being of Kenya’s children, increasing malnutrition rates, morbidity and mortality.

A rise in inter-tribal/inter-clan violence resulted in child deaths, injuries and displacement.

Despite recent economic growth, nearly a quarter of the population lives on less than $1 per day.

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