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The Assembly of the Republic, the Mozambican parliament, through its Commission for Prevention and Fight Against HIV/AIDS, is striving to work out a national strategy to support orphaned and vulnerable children. Speaking on Thursday at the headquaters of the parliament, and heading a group of parliamentarians who visited three provinces of the country recently, namely Sofala and Zambezia, in the central region, and Cabo Delgado, in the north, Isau Meneses, the chairperson of this commission, said that the meeting was to hear what people think of the issue in the visited areas. Adressing a press conference in Maputo, Meneses said that the government has given an important step by designing an action plan, that includes mobilizing funds, but now is the time for the parliamentarians to act. Data from the Foundation for the Community Development (FDC), a Mozambican NGO, reports that by the end of last year there were about 1,615 orphaned and vulnerable children across the country, and warns that this figure is set to grow to about three million by 2010. Meneses said that as part of the initiative to hear out the needy, the parliamentarians, thanks to the support of UNICEF and the European Parliament, managed to visit three children centres and families headed by children in those three provinces. During their visits, the parliamentarians organized meetings with representatives of the Children Parliament, of the Radio Mozambique Children Programme, of the Welfare groups, among other cooperation partners, all to ensure that children have the opportunity to express their points of view and their ambitions on the matter. Meneses said that children want parliamentarians to help them solve matters related to sexual and civic education, and the presence of children in night entertainment places, more schools for disabled children, the divulgation of the Family Law, access to scholarships, among other issues. The idea of this visit of the parliamentarians is to ensure and facilitate the government's support to the needy children. This group of parliamentarians is to carry out more visits in other areas next year, with the same purpose.