Two children of AIDS victms "fast" their way to school
- -Kollam: At an age when they should be frolicking around, two orphaned siblings have had to brave odds to get themselves admitted to a schoool -- Not for monetary reasons but because both their parents died of the dreaded Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome, called AIDS.

Seven year old Bency and five year old Benson, who are also infected with HIV will attend school from Monday, after a government school in their Kollam district admitted them following the chief minister's intervention. The children were denied their basic right to education as school after school refused them admission as word about their HIV condition and parents' past spread faster than they took to reach the insitutions, said Lalan C Jacob, Project Officer of a National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) aided NGO at Punaloor under the Kerala State AIDS Control.

On Friday, the children staged a day-long fast in front of State Secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram, hoping to move some hearts. The Chief Minister A K Antony moved and directed the concerned authorities to ensure that Bency and Benson were admitted to a school. According to an official release in Thiruvanthapuram, the children have been admitted to Kayathakuezhi at Chathamoor in Kollam district, where they hail from. While their father died in December 1997, their mother passed away in September 2000. The children are now with their old grandparents and would start going to school from Monday, Jacob said when contacted from Kochi.