Actress and Save the Children ambassador Joely Fisher visited them only three weeks after their mother's death and found Nilza still watering her mother's plants and wearing her clothes to hold on to her memory. Even though Nilza had cared for her mother for the last year of her life, she had not been told that she died of HIV/AIDS because of the stigma attached to the disease in this part of the world.  

The HIV/AIDS crisis in Mozambique affects 16 percent of all adults. Save the Children raises awareness of preventive health strategies, trains health workers, and provides home-based care for sufferers like Nilza's parents. Save the Children's health and nutrition programs have directly benefited 50,000 households in Mozambique to date, and our supplemental food programs provide nourishment to orphans and vulnerable children like Nilza and her brother.

Save the Children's sponsors make it possible for children like Nilza to be cared for, and for thousands of Mozambican children to be fed, educated, and given a future.

Last updated January, 2009