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The Holy Cross Children's Trust is a beacon of hope for the child victims of AIDS in a remote and rural area of South Africa devastated by the disease. 

We cannot imagine what it is like to be seven years old and watching parents and adult relatives die of AIDS. We can't imagine having no food, no money and living miles from any community, or at seven years old becoming the head of our family of younger siblings. But its happening right now.

Most people are aware of the chilling facts of AIDS in Africa. What is not immediately evident is its knock-on effects. Whole families of children – some infected by the virus, others not – are being orphaned in their thousands. Children are the innocent victims of AIDS. For most of these innocent children, the indirect victims of AIDS, there is no state help, no security and no personal safety. They have no history, nobody to tell them stories, nobody left to tell them who they are, and where they come from. There is nobody to comfort them or care what becomes of them. Every grown-up they ever knew is dead, and they are all alone.

The Holy Cross Children's Trust, run by Sister Priscilla Dlamini, seeks to provide AIDS orphans and the surrounding communities of child headed families with food, health care and education. As equally and vitally important, it also seeks to give these psychologically traumatised children counselling, encouragement and care. It provides them with a place to feel safe, and to play and just be children. It tries to create and celebrate the little milestones in their lives, which parents would otherwise have created. It works to give them small happinesses to remember and achievements to be proud of. It provides something as simple as a "memory box", where the children can safely store mementos of their lost families, and any official documents which still have, like their birth certificates.

One milestone we would like to help mark, is the "graduation" of the children as they leave the Trust's nursery school. Sister Priscilla holds a small party for them. This is one of their development milestones, and something they can look back at as marking an achievement in their lives. The party is not elaborate but it is a big moment in the lives of all the children. 

Any donations received will go towards the general care and upkeep of the children at the Trust, and some will go on the next graduation party.

Thank you for your help.

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