Unidentified boy holding baby in Bauleni, Lusaka. Children wash dishes from breakfast. Fountain of Hope provides 3 nutritious meals every day to up to 400 street children.

NPR's Brenda Wilson presents a three-part series airing on Morning Edition on December 27, 28, and 29, 2000, examining AIDS and it's effect on Zambian children.

The AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa has cost tens of millions of children at least one parent, and the future looks equally bleak. Millions more adults now infected with HIV are likely to die in the next decade. An unprecedented number of orphans created by the epidemic is straining the resources of poor nations like Zambia. And tens of thousands of babies born each year already have the disease. The streets of the capital, Lusaka, are becoming home to more and more children who have nowhere else to turn. It's estimated Zambia already has 600,000 orphans, and the figure is likely to reach at least one million in the near future.

Some charities, such as Fountain of Hope, are performing small miracles tending to the ill and trying to meet the needs of the children they will leave behind. But in a nation where the average yearly income is about $300, money to support the charities is not forthcoming. Many children are informally adopted by other families. Yet even that fragile safety net is endangered by the sheer numbers of orphans involved. Old bonds of kinship and community wear thin. Zambian government officials are appealing to international organizations to help with food and offer social services such as psychological help to families.

In Africa, Latin America and Asia, it's estimated there are more than 34 million children under the age of 15 who have lost one or both parents to AIDS and other causes. Most of those children live in sub-Saharan Africa. Countries like Zambia have more than 600,000 orphans. The situation is unlikely to get better since millions of adults now infected with the AIDS virus will die in the next decade.

Listen to part one of this series from Morning Edition on December 27, as NPR's Brenda Wilson reports on how the rising death rate in Zambia is leading to a crisis for its children.

The disease has already infected more than one million of the country's 10 million citizens. Despite its prevalence, many Zambians do not speak the word, 'AIDS.' So, while mothers are dying, they leave their children without an explanation. Hear more in part two.

Families in Zambia are struggling to stay together, as AIDS creates a nation of orphans there. The reality of AIDS touches everyone in this country of 10 million, sometimes reversing the natural order of things. The old look after the young; children become the heads of households. Listen to the third and last part of the series.

Visit the Web sites of some of the aid organizations referred to in these stories: