Youth Horizons is a youth-led organization that delivers programs of soccer for health and social cohesion, specifically targeted at youth living in situations of disadvantage in both urban and rural villages in Kenya. We intend to implement a youth-led soccer program, designed to promote HIV/AIDS education in conjunction with community soccer teams. The program components include various soccer competitions, soccer clinics and outreach to schools and communities
Since the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic 25 years ago, the virus has infected more than 47 million people in the world. With more than 2.2 million deaths in 1998, HIV/AIDS has now become the fourth leading cause of mortality and its impact is going to increase. Over 95% of all cases and 95% of AIDS deaths occur in developing world, mostly among young adults and increasingly women. Half of all new infections in the world occur in the age group of 10-24 translating to estimated 7,000 youth
Our solution lies in changing the "passive culture" amongst youth by making them learn to secure their existence in the social economical environment in Kenya and play their active role in future leadership. The project aims to achieve this by generating increased awareness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic through use of soccer, educational materials and development of a network of youth AIDS aware volunteers network in Kenya.
The Soccer-based HIV/AIDs programming is a completely new approach to combating this scourge. Why? Because we believe that the effectiveness of soccer for communication and social mobilization makes it a highly effective tool for raising public awareness about HIV/AIDS. Accordingly, Youth Horizons will focus on the four pillars necessary for effective HIV/AIDS programming, which are: knowledge, life skills, and the provision of a safe and supportive environment, Access to services
