Segment 1

VOICEOVER

The beat of a drum, dancing, and singing -- a brief escape from a harsh reality. These children here in rural Mozambique are but a handful of the 11 million AIDS orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa. What happens to them now, with no parents to teach them how to farm their land and no parents to protect them? A key to their survival is subsistence farming, and that's exactly what they're learning here at one of the nearly 30 "Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools" throughout central Mozambique. Kids learn hands-on lessons in agriculture: how to prepare fields, sow, irrigate, and harvest. Tradition is passed on as they're taught about indigenous crops and the power of medicinal plants. It's all about becoming independent and self-sufficient, say these classmates.

ZACARIAS MANUEL

Since we've been learning new things here we've been doing them back home too, and we're getting good results.

VICERNE BAPTISTA

So now we are teaching other people too.

VOICEOVER

But the children here are taught about more than just the basics of farming. Through counseling and dance, they're learning to build new self-esteem and a new type of family. And lessons in basic business skills offer a first step toward a future as working farmers. It's a model that has seen early success, a model that has now spread to Kenya, Namibia, and neighboring Zambia. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations prepared this report.