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| Irina Mishurny-Santini running to raise awareness and support. |
WASHINGTON, October 26, 2008 — Six World Bank staff ran for a very special cause in the 33rd annual Marine Corp Marathon. The 26-mile race took place Sunday in Washington D.C. The six runners, namely Christopher Saunders, Sarah Michael, Irina Mishurny-Santini, and Carolyn Winter, all from the World Bank, and Mark Blackden and Maika Chiquier from the IFC, ran the marathon to raise awareness and support for orphans of HIV/Aids in Zambia. Running under the umbrella of the Zambia Orphans of Aids (ZOA), the six-person team seeks to raise funds for a number of ZOA-supported initiatives. One these is the Angelina Tembo Girls School.
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Angelina Tembo Girls School sits in Kabwe, 64 miles outside Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. It is one of six towns situated along the highway to the Copperbelt, and is one of the hubs of HIV/AIDS in Zambia. The school has a high number of orphans across all grades. In 2007, there were a total of 80 single orphans (one parent deceased) and over 128 double orphans (both parents deceased) between Grades 8 through 12.
One such orphan is Sophie Kunda. At the age of 13, she was abandoned by her mother after the death of her father. The father worked in a lead and zinc mine in Kabwe, and later died of HIV/AIDS. Sophie was taken to Angelina Tembo Girls School, where she started her studies at Grade 8. Last year, she passed her Grade 12 with flying colors.
 Despite her early misfortune, she is determined to go to university to study medicine, and has ambitions to eventually become a doctor. Together with 14 other girls, most of whom are double orphans, she graduated from the Angelina Tembo Girls School. The fifteen orphan girls were beneficiaries of a scholarship program the school runs from money raised from rearing of chickens. The chicken rearing project is supported with funds received from ZOA.
ZOA was established as a private voluntary organization in Washington D.C. USA in 2001 to assist organizations and community groups in Zambia that care for the 1.1 million orphans, majority of whom have been orphaned by AIDS. Zambia Orphans of AIDS – Zambia (ZOAZ) was registered as a society in Lusaka on 31st October, 2003, with the objectives of:
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Providing financial and other forms of support to institutions in Zambia involved in responding to the needs of AIDS orphans;
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Funding projects to enhance the capacity and institutional self-sufficiency of local         organizations responding to the challenge posed by the increasing numbers of AIDS-related orphans;
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Raise public awareness in the US and elsewhere about plight of AIDS orphans in Zambia.
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Provide information to interested donors on Zambia and the projects being supported.
ZOAZ helps originate and review project requests for ZOA. It was registered in Zambia, in order to help ZOA-funded projects access the potentially large volume of aid funds becoming available to combat HIV/AIDS in Zambia, and to relieve the growing plight of orphans and vulnerable children.
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