UNICEF: Children Affected by HIV-AIDS Mozambique Conference

Today it's all smiles, sweetness and flowers but these Mozambican children want to show the dignitaries what they know about the hard realities of life around them: Children can and do get AIDS they agree but that doesn't mean you don’t play with them. That’s what they’re learning from the Kindlimuka association. And they know because the members themselves live with HIV everyday. Rima Salah Deputy Executive Director "It is so important. You see we have hundreds of children today with us and they are equipped. Knowledge is so important. We can not prevent the deadly disease of AIDS if children and young people don't have the knowledge" These children are just play acting out what it means to discriminate against AIDS orphans, but it’s everywhere and all around them at this school alone 10 percent of the children are orphans. And this is the real thing, real tears from a young girl who recently lost both her parents: Azuzena Martinis Fernando, 11 (Portuguese) "I live with my aunt, my uncle and one of my cousins." My father was away in South Africa working and he came back and he was already sick and my mother then got sick and they both died. Within a year of each other both her mum and dad were gone. Azuzena Martinis Fernando, 11 (Portuguese) "It got better because they support me. And they play with me." Now she gets by with a lot of help from her friends. The importance of supporting orphans like Azuzena is what's brought many dignitaries to Mozambique to make a song and dance about the importance of doing much more. Can anybody be more vulnerable than a child without a mother upsound: Nico Scholton, president of AWEPA. And if the projection rates are right about the spread of HIV / AIDS in Mozambique - now at 16 percent of the population - a lot more children are going to be a lot more vulnerable in the future.