In 2003, Nelson Mandela invited Annie Lennox to perform at an AIDS Charity concert in South Africa. The day after the concert, Mandela gave a press conference: AIDS in Africa is genocide, he said, with 17 million dead and women and children becoming the frontline victims.   

Annie Lennox has always been a well-informed woman but she was shocked. ‘ I thought I need to sit up and listen. The world needs to sit up and listen. Generations are being wiped out, millions of babies are orphans, women just like me are dying and we're sitting around and reading about 'Celebrities Without Makeup,' she said. 'That moment, as I listened to Nelson Mandela, propelled me forward. I evolved from being a singer-songwriter-performer-mother-woman to being an activist.'

Annie Lennox has sold more than 80 million records in her four decade career and as South Africa has a tradition of activist songs, music was an obvious way to spread the message.

Annie invited twenty three acclaimed female artists, including Madonna, K D Lang and Pink, to record an anthem, ‘Sing.’ The charity record and the SING Campaign raise money and promote AIDS awareness giving a voice to HIV women and children.

'One third of pregnant women in South Africa are HIV positive,' Lennox says. 'We can prevent their children being born with the virus if we let the women have access to treatment. If you do not allow that to happen, you're going to have future generations simply being wiped out.’ Access to treatment and health care, she points out, is a fundamental human right for every woman.

Lennox believes everybody can do something to help those affected by AIDS in Africa and urges people to join in the struggle to help the 15 million children orphaned by the disease.

Read more or watch the SING video.