Singer Alicia Keys Pours Heart into AIDS Fight in Africa

WENTWORTH, SOUTH AFRICA — -- Alicia Keys did not have to come here, to this small town outside of Durban on South Africa's eastern coast, where the infection rate from HIV/AIDS is believed to be twice the national average: 40 percent of the people in this part of the country are infected.

But for the Grammy winning singer and songwriter, the opportunity to come here and help build a clinic was reason enough to cross the ocean and confront a seemingly insurmountable challenge. She came, she says, "To be the voice of the people. To represent real people and real life, real struggles, real pains, real joys, real things that are really there, you know?

Watch Nightline at 11:35 p.m. EST tonight to see the full report on Cynthia McFadden's visit to South Africa with Alicia Keys. For more on Keys' foundation, go to www.keepachildalive.org.

"I never wanted to be caught up in all the fantasies and the frivolity," she said. "You know, just, I never cared about that."

The humanitarian organization Keep A Child Alive has enlisted Keys as an ambassador to raise awareness about AIDS in Africa, where it hopes to attack the pandemic through a simple philosophy: $1 per child, per day for life-saving drugs, with nearly 100 percent of donations going toward treatment.

The clinic in Wentworth will provide the town's residents with HIV testing and treatment, as well as counseling for alcohol and drug dependencies, and courses in nutrition and women's empowerment.

But the effort, though substantial, is a small counterattack in a war with many, many fronts.

Twenty-five years after the AIDS virus was identified, stigmas, taboos, and falsehoods continue to surround the disease, especially in a place like Wentworth. South Africa has as many as 6 million people living with HIV/AIDS -- it's more than any other country, but the accurate total is difficult to estimate because so many people refuse to be tested.

Until very recently, the nation's President denied the link between HIV and AIDS. And in a widely publicized trial this year, a major politician claimed he would bathe after sexual intercourse to avoid transmission of the virus --