Tearfund is to launch a new appeal this autumn as part of a major strategy to enable churches to fight the AIDS pandemic.

The Work a Miracle appeal will support churches throughout the developing world which have already made a good start in tackling an illness that has claimed more than 20 million lives in the last 25 years. Every day another 14,000 people are infected with HIV, most of them in countries already crippled by poverty.

A new film produced for Tearfund features Esther, from Malawi, who ten years ago gave birth to a daughter on Christmas Day. Esther is living with HIV. She named her daughter Alinafe, which means God is with us. Esther knows there is a risk that she may have transmitted HIV to her child whilst Alinafe remains unaware of the danger. She doesn't know why her mother is sick sometimes.

"I don't want to tell her that I have HIV," says Esther. "When I'm ill, I tell her I might not get better. But it makes her so sad."