American Friends of Cecily's Fund is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to sending Zambian children orphaned by AIDS to school.

Currently, we work with Cecily's Fund (UK) and with well-run Zambian groups. They identify children who have been pushed into abject poverty because they have lost one or both parents - usually to AIDS. We help with school fees and the shoes, books and pens and pencils, which they need to go to school. We also help pay for children at the community school we support in Lusaka to receive a daily meal.

Without this support they simply could not go to school.

Once they graduate high school, we also help finance opportunities for them to train as peer health educators and teachers. This promotes the concept of “self-help” and enables the next generation of school children to become part of the solution to the problem.

Peer Health Educators learn all about HIV and AIDS and how to stay healthy and safe, then go back into schools to share this life-saving knowledge with other young people.

Teachers are desperately needed in Zambia as they too are being hard hit by HIV. Orphans and vulnerable children who train as teachers help to replenish Zambia's pool of qualified teachers and ensure a good living for themselves and their families.

You can help to give them a future!

"The best defence against HIV and AIDS is to get young people into school and help them stay there. School helps these youngsters piece together again the shattered fragments of their lives, enables them to experience normality and stability and offers them hope and a sense of purpose. In ensuring that orphans and vulnerable children get to school, Cecily's Fund is doing exactly the right thing." Father Michael Kelly SJ, Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Zambia

Follow the links to donate online or email america@cecilysfund.org for more details.