Agnes Nyamayarwo is a Ugandan nurse and activist whose fight against AIDS has led her from personal and family tragedy to meeting with President Bush and touring the U.S. with Bono. She is the facilitator and founding member of the MPWN (Mulago Positive Women’s Network) and a leader in the fight against AIDS in Africa. She is also a Board member of TASO (The AIDS Support Organization). In December of 2002, she joined Bono, Ashley Judd, Chris Tucker, and others on the Heart of America tour, where thousands of Americans were moved by her story and inspired to action. Agnes has also been a spokesperson for ONE, the campaign to make extreme poverty history.

Agnes had left nursing to raise her eight children when her husband died in 1992. After she discovered he had died of AIDS, she was tested and discovered that she too was HIV positive. She then learned that she had unknowingly passed on HIV to her youngest child in childbirth. He died at age 6 and she holds herself responsible for his death. Her eldest son, who is not HIV positive, was teased at school and treated as if he too had AIDS. He suffered severe depression, ran away from home and has never returned. But Agnes refused to give up. She planned ahead for her family, in anticipation of her death, compiling a "Memory Book" for her children, filled with stories about her, her character, her family and about her children when they were growing up. But she also looked for a way to give her life meaning and help prevent others from suffering what had happened to her.

“I strongly believe that the turning point in the war against HIV/AIDS is to help keep the infected parents alive so that their children may not become orphans when they are still young. If I can help save other parents from the horror and pain that I have experienced in my life, it will be one of the biggest achievements of my life and it will surely make my heart sing with joy.”