UNICEF'S UK executive director, David Bull, speaks exclusively to the Evening News about one ray of light in an area where despair is the norm.

"We visited Salima Aids Support Organisation, in Eastern Malawi, near to the beautiful shores of the Lake.

"This Unicef-supported centre provides a range of services related to HIV/Aids.

"The centre at Salima offers counselling and testing for HIV, free condom distribution, home based care for Aids patients, and prevention education.

"Their services cover 650 villages in the Salima area. A total of 1635 orphans are registered with SASO and more than 500 were at the "Children's Corner."

"Once a week, these especially vulnerable children receive not only food, but also genuine love and care, and a chance to play and be children despite the difficulties they face.

Vulnerable

"The children here include not only those orphaned by Aids, but the other children being cared for in the same families, and other vulnerable children, such as street children. We saw children playing football and dancing, singing, eating lunch, and learning how to avoid transmission of HIV.

"The project also recognises the danger that poverty can keep children out of school and damage their prospects, so they pay school fees to enable orphaned children to progress to secondary education, as well as providing uniforms and pens for primary pupils.

"They can also receive medical care. Although the children are not routinely tested for HIV, some are known to be positive and others suffer the infections associated with the virus.

"Although antiretroviral drugs are subsidised by the Government the $35 a month - about £230 - cost remains unaffordable for these children, and for most of the population of a country where the minimum wage is 50p a day and most are outside the wage economy.

"People come for testing for many reasons - a new relationship, an unexplained sickness, the loss of a family member. More than one in five prove positive."