Stories of love, pain and courage : AIDS orphans and memory boxes

This article reports on a project by the Sinomlando Centre for Oral History, in which memory boxes were used with young children in South Africa who had recently lost a parent due to AIDS. The act of making memory boxes and talking about the memories to be stored within it creates a space for families and communities to talk about life, death and plans for the future. This communication creates a psychosocial support network for young children with the aim of promoting resiliency so that they may be better able to cope with their loss. The article includes a short methodology of how the results of the project were gathered and three detailed case studies