Beyond the livelihood framework: aspirations and well-being in encounters with AIDS orphans in Mozambique

This chapter uses the resource profile approach as a framework to explore well-being and future aspirations among orphans and vulnerable children in Central Mozambique who took part in an AIDS mitigation project aimed at shoring up rural livelihoods. It is shown that participation in the project has altered the resource profile of participants, not least in terms of bolstering cultural resources and enhancing the capacity to aspire. This has wider implications for individuals’ resource profile dynamics more generally and strengthens the case for interventions into HIV/AIDS based on a holistic understanding of people’s well-being. It also shows that capital-asset-based livelihood approaches fall short in term of providing a useful framework to understand people’s lived realities.