"Grace" is a teenager pursuing her life's dream: to graduate from high school, attend medical school, and become a doctor. In America, such dreams are commonplace, but in Malawi this is a big dream. Many orphaned girls are encouraged to drop out of school to take care of younger siblings and some are pushed into marriage early. This helps explain why women’s literacy rates are a dismal 49.8% compared to 72% for men, while HIV infection rates are highest among women accounting for 59% of all adult infections.

With GAIA’s help, Grace is working to beat the odds and pursue her dreams—she is at the top of her class at the Lilongwe Girls Secondary School. Her accomplishments are significant given the many obstacles she has faced in her short life: as an African girl, an AIDS orphan and a refugee—she grew up in a Malawian refugee camp for Burundians. Through the Orphan Education Fund, GAIA supports orphans like Grace providing them with tuition assistance, school supplies and uniforms, at an annual cost of $125 per student. Recently, Grace wrote a poem about her life entitled "Whom Else Could I Concern". In it, she chronicles the tough situations she has overcome:

"The time both my father and my mother died, I was left helpless and hopeless. I couldn’t go further with my education. I asked myself as to whom could it concern. . . By that time, I cried day in and day out. My voice was broken and my eyes turned red. I wished I had never been born. . . . You [GAIA] removed me from the shame of living a dependent life. I appreciate your charity and promise to thank you with my performance."