Name Naoko Mizuno Age 38 Place of birth Osaka, Japan Languages Japanese, English, Italian

Job title
Associate Professional Officer (Monitoring the impact of HIV/AIDS on Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods) women in development

“Did you know that there are more than 12 million AIDS orphans in Africa and the number is estimated to soar to 20 million by 2010? Because a lot of them live in poor isolated farming communities, it is a very sad fact that they’re often neglected.

It’s a terrible situation for these kids. They’re poor. They’re hungry. Often their parents died when they were very young, so they don’t have the knowledge or the skills to provide for themselves.

We’ve got to do something to make sure these orphans aren’t forgotten.

At FAO, I’ve been working on AIDS orphans in rural communities. I write reports and presentation materials that help people understand the situation these children are facing. Recently, I prepared a background paper on education and HIV/AIDS in rural Africa for a Ministerial Conference on Education for Rural People in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Ministers of education from 11 African countries attended the conference, which FAO helped organize. It’s really satisfying to know that I was able to contribute to addressing the needs of these orphans.

Soon, I’ll be going to Kenya to do research in the field about another neglected group of people affected by the AIDS crisis: the elderly.”