Caroline Matthews 
Age: 18
Hometown: Chevy Chase, Maryland
Project: AIDS Awareness Club

When Caroline Matthews turned 16, she decided to celebrate her birthday a bit differently than her peers. She invited her family and friends over for a homemade dinner and asked, in lieu of gifts, for donations to be made to Nyumbani, an orphanage in Kenya for HIV-positive children, many of whom have been orphaned by AIDS.

Caroline has been visiting Nyumbani (which means "home" in Swahili) with her family since 2002. Over the years, her connection to the local community has grown stronger and fueled her passion to raise awareness about the spread of AIDS.

To put her ideas into action, she started an AIDS Awareness Club during her sophomore year in high school. The club addresses the AIDS problem both at home and abroad by raising funds for Nyumbani and the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington D.C. Club members have participated in AIDS walks, organized events on World AIDS Day, and fundraised by selling jewelry made by women in the Kibara slums of Nairobi, Kenya.

Since her first visit to Nyumbani five years ago, Caroline has begun to see the positive effects of funds from her club as well as from President Bush’s emergency AIDS benefit plan. The children are healthy and school attendance is up. But there is still much work to be done.

Caroline says of the children at Nyumbani, "As they get older, they start to wonder about their future. What will life after Nyumbani be like? Will they be able to hold jobs without being ostracized? Will they be able to get married and have kids? Will they get the medication they need?"

These questions have made Caroline's own future clear to her. Graduating from high school this year, she will leave the AIDS Awareness Club going strong in the hands of a new president and 30 dedicated members. In the fall, Caroline plans to study global public health at the University of Pennsylvania and continue her lifelong project of combating AIDS.