Community decreases HIV/AIDS rates through music and drama

Photo by Jenny Matthews

Schools are benefiting from HIV/AIDS education

A youth group in one of Kenya’s poorest communities is proving that learning about HIV can decrease the number of new HIV/AIDS infections.

The Juja Farm Future Youth Group (JFFYG), from Juja Farm community in central Kenya began to place HIV/AIDS messages into their newsletters, music and drama, following training on raising awareness of HIV/AIDS through Plan’s Hope for African Children Initiative (HACI).

Since the training, cases in HIV/AIDS are three times lower than those reported in 1999:

• In 1999, three people in ten among 20-45 year-olds had HIV/AIDS – 30 percent infection rate
• Six years later, the infection rate has dropped to one in ten – 10 percent of the population

For people living in Juja Farm, the turnaround is nothing short of a miracle. Like other communities in the nearby industrial Thiba district, Juja Farm was severely hit by recession in the 1990s.

Mass unemployment and poverty led to a sharp rise in drug abuse, alcoholism, crime and sexual exploitation of girls as young as 12 years old. By 1999, Thiba district had one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS infection rates and the largest number of AIDS orphans in Kenya.

Photo by Jenny Matthews

Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) centre

But since JFFYG started to put key HIV/AIDS-awareness messages in their work, the community has seen a fall in polygamous and unplanned marriages (known colloquially as ‘kuja tukae’) and a rise in condom use. There has also been a rise in the number of young people visiting Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) centres.

The group’s chair George Waweru, 22, said; “Our music group has already recorded 12 of its songs about HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, early marriages, rape and infidelity, while our drama group is a crowd-puller at the market place and in schools and churches."

He added; “We also give talks on HIV/AIDS, and run courses with trained counsellors and local churches for parents, farmers and carers. Many young people in our community know now that contracting HIV/AIDS is not inevitable – you can take steps to protect yourself and others simply by not abusing drugs or having unprotected sex.”

The community’s schools have also benefited - one local primary school teacher said that only around 20 percent of the children she teaches have never been to school, compared with more than 60 percent three years ago.

Plan’s Kenya Country Director Else Kragholm said; “This is a powerful example of how young people can take positive action which works. Thanks to the efforts of JFFYG, which Plan supported, the whole community has benefited. Fewer people are dying and there is better care and support for those with HIV/AIDS. In turn this is giving people more time to tend to their farms and for children to attend school.”