The funeral for Australian humanitarian Irene Gleeson, who looked after orphaned Ugandan children for more than 20 years, has been held in Sydney this morning.
Ms Gleeson died last week at the age of 68 after a 14-month battle with cancer.
A spokesperson for the family said Ms Gleeson died surrounded by family and friends in Sydney.
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She will be remembered for housing, feeding and educating more than six thousand children, who'd been orphaned or abducted by Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army.
Watch: 'Mama Irene' farewelled: Sam Ikin reports
In 1991 Gleeson sold everything she owned, said goodbye to her four grown children and 13 grandchildren, and towed her caravan to Sudanese town of Kitgum - home to one of the world's most terrible conflicts.
There in the small, isolated community on the Sudan border, Ms Gleeson began teaching traumatised children to sing.
Many of the children she rescued were former child soldiers who had been kidnapped by Joseph Kony and his band of rebels.
A trained teacher, she then added reading and writing to her repertoire.
Eventually she began feeding the orphans, sinking wells and establishing building works.
But the achievements did not come without personal cost.
Ms Glesson was the target of several rebel attacks and suffered bouts of malaria and depression.
Spokeswoman for the Irene Gleeson Foundation, Irene Zagorski, says today's service in Sydney has drawn a large crowd.
"Because she impacted the world really and with her ministry in Uganda, so we have people from all over the place," said Ms Zagorski.
"I know there's a lot of people who won't be able to make it but at the same time people are travelling from interstate and some people might watch on online if they can't make it to the funeral service but yeah of course it's going to be huge for sure."
Some 10,000 people in Uganda attended a day-long memorial service to honour Irene Gleeson on Sunday.
Gleeson's work has been recognized by the President of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, and by the Australian government.
In 2009, she received the honor of Officer of the Order of Australia for 'service to international relations, particularly through sustained aid for children affected by war and HIV/AIDS in northern Uganda'.
WATCH: Sam Ikin's video report on YouTube
