Back in the early 1990s, Judy read a newspaper article about 25 children with HIV/AIDS who were homeless and living in the Children's Ward of the General Hospital in Port of Spain. In Trinidad and Tobago, more than 3,600 children have been orphaned by AIDS. Neither she nor anybody else at St. Vincent de Paul had any experience working with HIV/AIDS patients but she knew she needed to do something to help.

Guided by their organization's motto, "No Work of Charity is Foreign to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul," they quickly furnished a home and went to the hospital to collect the children.

And so Cyril Ross Nursery was born. "From the very beginning we had to face the stigma that is attached to HIV/AIDS," says Clive Belgrave, national Honorary Secretary of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. "When we brought the first children in we had to do it in secrecy and couldn't tell any of the neighbors about their HIV status."

At first, the nursery's objective was to care for the children during the short time they had to live. It was a harrowing job. "The first children that came in were extremely frail and withdrawn," says Yvette Woodruffe, one of the women running the nursery. "We felt that they had very little time left, but once they came to the nursery the love and care that they received from the staff worked miracles."

But there were many who succumbed to the disease. "During the first four years of Cyril Ross's life we buried more children than I could have counted," says Judy. "Many times I felt I needed to leave the nursery because I felt that I couldn't deal with the death of one more child."

Three years ago, free anti-retroviral drugs started to flow into the nursery and changed everything.

"Even before the drugs, the care and love they received was making the children healthier and prolonging their lives," says Judy. "But the change once they started taking the medication was dramatic."

Longer lives brought along new challenges for the Cyril Ross staff. "All of a sudden we had kids who reached the age of communion and confirmation and who were old enough to go to high-school," she says. "In the beginning wewere here to ease the children's passing, now we had to prepare them for living!"

Still, the problems ahead are daunting. "I'm afraid to think about what we will face ten years down the road," says Judy. "I anticipate problems with some children becoming reluctant to take their medication and I anticipate a long struggle to have the larger community accept these children despite their HIV status."

Judy also foresees a steady decrease in the number of children who will come to Cyril Ross Nursery. "We are now in the midst of our struggle against the stigma and discrimination that is attached to the virus, but we are making headway," she says. "And once we do away with the stigma I believe that treatment and prevention will follow and, eventually, we will get the disease under control. It will probably not happen during my lifetime, but I'm confident that it will happen."