Lausanne World Pulse – I Choose Life—Africa: Turning the Tide on the HIV/AIDS Pandemic among University Students

November 2007

By Mike Mutungi

I Choose Life—Africa recruits students in various institutions of higher learning to participate in the 32-hour Peer Education Training.

Background
Young people between fifteen and twenty-four years of age account for more than half of the over five million new HIV infections worldwide each year; an estimated six thousand youth become infected each day across the globe.¹ In Kenya, HIV-prevalence in this age bracket—particularly among females—is extremely high. Kenyan women are at greatest risk of infection between the ages of twenty and twenty-four, with eighteen percent being infected within two years of sexual initiation.

Included within this high-risk group are the majority of university students. By the time Kenyan youth walk into their university hostels for the first time, a large proportion of them have already had sexual intercourse.² The new-found autonomy of university life—away from the watchful eyes of parents, high school teachers and church youth leaders—leads many additional students to experiment with a wide range of risky behaviours. The Kenya National AIDS Strategic Plan (KNASP) 2005–2009/10 has therefore identified university students as a high-risk group for contracting an HIV infection.

Thus, although university students as a whole are viewed as key to the future of the nation, individually they are at enormous risk of contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It is with this in mind that the Commission for Higher Education, together with I Choose Life—Africa, has made it a priority to implement HIV/AIDS interventions in Kenyan universities.

I Choose Life—Africa
I Choose Life—Africa is the leading behaviour change communication program in institutions of higher learning in Kenya. The program was launched in 2002 by the Ministry of Health and later recommended to all universities by the Commission for Higher Education. To date, we have set up programs at the University of Nairobi, Kenyatta, Daystar, Maseno, Moi and Egerton, as well as the Cooperative College of Kenya. The program is poised to include more universities and colleges in the near future. The vision of I Choose Life—Africa is to have an AIDS-free country. The mission is to create a movement of caring communities among students that make responsible and informed choices with regard to life and HIV/AIDS through prevention, care and support as well as mitigation of social economic impact.

Mike Mutungi is CEO of I Choose Life—Africa. Previously, he worked with The Navigators. Mutungi holds a masters in divinity degree from the Nairobi International School of Theology.