**2. Conceptualising orphans and vulnerable children**

The UNAIDS [10] defines orphans as children under the age of 18 years whose parent(s) have died, while vulnerable children are children with unfulfilled rights. This definition is in line with the Zimbabwe National Orphan Care Policy (ZNOCP) [11] which defines orphans as those aged 0–18 whose parent(s) have died. Vulnerable children are defined as children with unfulfilled rights and mainly identified as children with one parent deceased, children with disabilities and affected and/or infected by HIV and AIDS. Concurrently, the National Action Plan ([12], p. 8) adds that vulnerable children may also include abused children (sexually, physically, and emotionally), abandoned children, children living in the streets and married children. In addition, the National Action Plan [12] included neglected children, children with chronically ill parent(s), child parents and the destitute as vulnerable children in need of care and support in Zimbabwe, to cite but a few.

This definition, though widely adopted, has inherent limitations, especially in the context of resource-constrained environments in which many 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children live. For instance, the use of the chronological age ignores many young persons above the age of 18 years whose parents are deceased and who are exposed to intense vulnerability contexts devoid of any family or external support. As noted by Killian [13], the definition implies that by merely attaining the age of 18 years, one is automatically weaned from the 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children category to the non-orphan-hood and vulnerability regime. As a result, this transition renders 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children as individuals no longer needing care and support. However, his/her plight may not be any different from those below the age of 18 who live with him/her in a similar environment. Put simply, while the secondary caregivers who include the government, close friends or extended families and NGOs, to mention but a few, presume that the post-18 years of age era means that a young person can look after himself and herself, in real terms, this is very often not the case. This assertion was further supported in the Situational Analysis of 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children (SAOVC) in Zimbabwe by UNICEF [14] which revealed that the use of age as a criterion in aiding for education was penalising teenagers who started school late by excluding them from continued educational support once they turned 18 years of age. This poses more challenges to household caregivers who will mandatorily oblige to support and care for them through their limited resources.

### **3. Conceptualization of the caregivers and household level**

Ringson [15] defined a caregiver as the person above the 18 who is either employed with an organisation or voluntarily offers his/her services to an organisation to take care of the elderly or children in residential care or 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children. Hermanns and Smith-Mastel [16] in Ringson ([15], p. 504) assert that "the act of caregiving is not unfamiliar, but the term 'caregiving' is relatively new, with the first recorded use of the word in 1966." Caregiving is a hybridised compound word where caring and giving were combined to bring about a new meaning. Etymologically, the term "care" was derived from an Old English term "wicim" which means mental suffering, mourning, sorrow, or trouble. The term "give" was also derived from an Old English term which means to "bestow gratuitously". Premised on the etymological analysis of caregiving as a concept, the Oxford English Dictionary defines caregiving as an act characterised by attention being given to the needs of others, especially those who are unable to look after themselves adequately, such as children under the age of 18 and elderly persons.

*The Caregivers' Perspective in Coping with the Challenges Faced by Orphans and Vulnerable… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101232*

Further to the foregoing conceptualization of caregiving, it is important to note that caregiving is multidimensional. It involves caring for children under the age of 18 with special needs (i.e., orphans and vulnerable children), elderly care, and parental care (referring to caring for parents with special needs). In this context, caregiving is focusing on the care of 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children. The caregivers, in this case, are the extended family which entail the father, mother, grandparents, sisters/brothers, and uncles/aunts. Within the African indigenous 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children care and support approach, Chizororo [7] argues that it is the right of 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children to be absorbed by an immediate family when both parents are deceased or when their biological parents are living in poverty. However, in the case of losing one parent, the orphaned children are to be rightfully placed under the guardianship of the living parents. Thus, Ringson [15] defined a household as a family and social unit of people of the same lineage. A household is therefore a family unit of the closest relatives of the orphans' deceased parents and the vulnerable children's parents. This paper, therefore, examines the challenges faced by bringing up 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children in the Gutu District of Zimbabwe with special emphasis on the caregivers' experiences, feelings and views.

### **4. Ubuntu 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children care, model**

Traditionally, within the Zimbabwean context orphans were absorbed with the extended families that would carry the responsibility to care for and support them. Similarly, vulnerable children would also be absorbed by the extended families and the community care and support networks [9]. According to Mugumbate and Chereni [6], ubuntu serves as the spiritual foundation of many African communities and cultures. It is a multidimensional concept that represents the core value of African ontology—such as respect for human beings, human dignity and human life, collective sharedness, obedience, humility, solidarity, caring, hospitality, interdependence, and communalism. The ubuntu version can be translated as "I am human because I belong". Thus, ubuntu is a radical reflection of shared humanity and has a universal appeal of traditional community values ([17], p. 1). Premised in the foregoing, ubuntu as a socio-economic framework can be analogically interpreted as the veins of the society that uphold human solidarity.

The recent study carried out by Ringson [15] asserts that most of the African communities and especially rural communities are holding on to their cultural ways of childcare, and as a result, there is a collision course with the contemporary human rights approaches. Notwithstanding the efficacy of the child rights approaches promulgated by the UNCRC, Van Breda [18] contentiously argues that ubuntu childcare modelling has somehow been submerged by Western models. Thus, a plethora of challenges faced by the caregivers within the rural communities in upbringing their OVCs is because of their reluctance to transform from their traditional ways of caring for children embedded in ubuntu philosophy.

The ubuntu model of childcare would be seen in the willingness of the community and extended families to take care of and support the deceased's children and other vulnerable children in the community. As such, the terms 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children in many parts of African communities are regarded as a distortion of the traditional values in childcare and parenthood entrenched in the ubuntu childcare model [19]. In the context of the above argument, Van Doore [20] avers that the problem of the commodification of children being manufactured as 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' and used to generate profit in orphanages and by other non-governmental organisations is global. Whilst it is commonplace in a Western

model for an 'orphan' or 'vulnerable' child to be taken to an orphanage or residential care where they are being commodified, the ubuntu parenthood model of childcare absorbs a child within his/her relatives, families, and communities for the preservation of dignity, cultural values, and posterity.

Based on the ubuntu childcare model and parenthood, a child despite his/her status is valued as the symbol of posterity and wealth. Concurrently, Tigere [21] exhibited that a child within an African context— be it an 'orphan' or 'vulnerable'— is the central focus of the community and the families. In this context, in a situation where the uncle, aunt or any other close relative of a child is alive and is willing to take care of the child, the child was not considered to be an 'orphan' or 'vulnerable'. Instead, from the ubuntu parenthood model of childcare, the nomenclature 'orphan' and 'vulnerable' in this milieu becomes discriminatory and creates a negative social image of a child. However, in some exceptional cases, that have been rare in African communities, where an 'orphan' and 'vulnerable' child has no living relatives, then the nomenclature would suffice [22]. In her assertion, Pillay was complemented by Tigere [21] who argues that labelling of a child as an 'orphan' and 'vulnerable' in the African context is not only stigmatising of the child but a direct insult to those participants in the social network providing care and support to the child.

In this case, the predominant form of extended families in Zimbabwe is that of kinship including the frontline relatives such as paternal uncles and aunts, including the paternal and maternal grandparents. These frontline relatives are traditionally responsible for assuming the care and support of orphans upon the death of one or both parents and vulnerable children in cases of abandonment or otherwise. Ordinarily, one member of the extended family network assumes the primary caregiver role while others may periodically contribute resources as secondary caregivers. Despite the shortcomings of the ubuntu childcare model due to the depletion of the African social fabric because of Western expansionism, they continue to espouse and uphold traditional approaches in childcare [23]. According to Ringson [15], these shortcomings of ubuntu childcare and support include but are not limited to child labour, mutilation of sexual organs in the name of culture, child pledging in marriage, usurpation of the orphans' right to the deceased parents' estate, beating as a form of punishment and religious or culture sexual abuse tantamount to gross infringement of child rights.

Studies conducted within the different contexts of Africa such as by Ringson [15]; Pillay [22] and Shanalingigwa [23] confirm that these abuses continue in some African communities despite prevailing child rights enforcements. Thus, many caregivers with the traditional arrangements and within the rural communities are failing to uphold child rights and absolve their cultural tendencies. As a result, this presents numerous challenges to caregivers in their attempts to provide care and support to 'orphans' and 'vulnerable' children as prescribed by the UNCRC framework.
