ABSTRACT
South Africa carries one of the world’s most prevalent burdens of disease, HIV. This chapter highlights the struggle inherent in the attempt to provide sustainable pockets of care in response to the HIV/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes epidemic. The epidemic itself on many levels precludes making sense of, and straddles living with, death and investing in life continuously. The chapter outlines the psychosocial context in which many young South Africans are raised and describes an experiential art therapy group with HIV counsellors with the primary objective of becoming ‘surrogate parents’. Mental health needs of children and adolescents globally do not get the attention and resources required, but are severely underserved in low and middle-income countries such as South Africa. The HIV pandemic has increasingly brought attention to the unmet mental health needs of children and adolescents. One of the key risks for poor mental health, especially among orphans, is bereavement.
