As more adults succumb to HIV/AIDS, orphaned children fall into deep financial and emotional despair. With few opportunities to learn important life-skills, attend school and make a living, these youth are at high risk for exploitation, abuse and HIV. At GAIA we believe orphaned youth deserve a better life, so we created the Orphan Education Fund to give orphans the opportunities that only an education can provide.

In Malawi, primary school is free, but public high schools charge tuition and require that students purchase mandatory uniforms as well as their own books and supplies. The annual cost of attending public high school - approximately $125 dollars, makes obtaining a high school diploma an impossible dream for most the country's 550,000 orphans.

For orphaned girls, the chances of going to high school are much slimmer. A cultural bias that favors boys means that few girls attend high school. When a parent is ill, the oldest girl in the family is pulled out of school to care for sick family members. When a parent dies, the oldest girl becomes the main caregiver for her siblings. Walk into any high school in Malawi and the impact of this practice is clear-girls are in the minority. Only 15% of the girls who do enroll will graduate from high school. This explains why so many women lack the literacy and numeracy skills which make it possible for them for them to support their families.

Orphaned girls burdened with the responsibility of caring for younger siblings but without skills and an education become easy prey for older men who offer money and food in exchange for sex. These liaisons often result in HIV infection, and help explain why women account for 59% of all adult infections. Clearly, when orphaned girls do not attend high school they are more vulnerable to HIV, sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy and more likely to live in poverty.

To bring down rates of HIV and disease and offer orphans, particularly orphaned girls, more opportunities, our Malawi-Based Staff identify youth who are good scholarship candidates. To be considered, each candidate is required to have passed the government's high-school entrance exam and must submit progress reports to GAIA's Central Malawi Program Manager who tracks each student's progress.

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