CNN Heroes: Giving hope to orphans of AIDS

CNN Heroes
updated 7:14 p.m. EST, Fri February 15, 2008

"When I visit Malawi, I visit my family at the graveyard," says Marie Da Silva, who knows the impact of AIDS all too well.

Born and bred in Malawi, in southern Africa, Da Silva lost 14 family members, including her father and 2 brothers, to the disease.

"AIDS is like The Plague in Malawi," says Da Silva.

According to UNAIDS, 14 percent of the country's adult population is infected with HIV and more than half a million children have been orphaned by the disease.

"Orphans [in Malawi] are very underprivileged -- the grandparents are trying to raise them, with no money, no food, no clothes," she says. "Just poverty."

But from halfway around the world, as a nanny in Los Angeles, California, Da Silva provides a place where the orphans can get away from that -- The Jacaranda School.

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