Using the power of soccer to fight HIV/AIDS

Armed with boxes and packets of condoms over the last festive season, replacing the usual ‘Santa Claus’ with ‘Mr. Condom’, VAP partnered with Koth Biro football tournament on its familiar battle ground of football activities, with footballers and the entire football fraternity that includes the community to distribute condoms to them. The annual totally sold-out Koth Biro football tournament which normally happens with its own vibe of community clubs rivalry and supremacy is arguably the oldest and the most electrifying tournament that produces the best of the best of Kenya’s top cream footballers and also serves as the bedrock of Kenya’s professional footballers. The tournament is normally played at Ziwani grounds during December holidays when all football leagues in Kenya are off-season thus creating an opportunity for top league players to reconnect with their parental community clubs in the tournament. Koth Biro which means ‘rain is coming’ in luo tribe is associated with muddy affairs due to the rainy season.

             Scramble For Condoms

With hundreds of funs and community enjoying the holidays and thronging Ziwani sports ground to cheer up their respective football clubs, condoms were on a booming business especially with the many millennials who were in attendance. Despite receiving condoms, the receipents were instructed on how to use them and informed of the recent statistics from the National Aids Control Council (NACC), Kenya Aids Reponse Progress Report 2016; 15-24 years contributed 51% of adult new HIV infection in 2015 with 35,776 being new HIV infections, 268,586 living with HIV and 3,853 HIV related deaths. The tournament attracts and nurtures new football lads and pools them against well-established footballers.

        Servicing The Service Providers

Contrary to their usual duty of providing security services to the community and at the tournament, police officers couldn’t afford to be left out of the bandwagon, they too had to take advantage of the precious commodity distributed provided by Mr Condom. A total of 36,000 condoms were distributed in various tournaments including football leagues and youth entertainment joints. With the success of the distribution, VAP is looking forward to integrate both male and female condom distribution in its Kick N Test football tournaments and leagues as well as reaching out to other external leagues and tournaments organized within Nairobi targeting the youth

       Reaching To The Players!

Out of 90 teams from different places and communities of Nairobi that participated in the tournament, a half of them were presented with sachets and boxes of condoms that they could use as well as taking them to their respective clubs bases and training grounds to share with their colleagues. “HIV is real and many youth  of my age are still living in denial and many are in a rush and don’t want to protect themselves when engaging into sex with their partners. Am glad to have a set of condoms that I will use and share with my colleagues at home. “Said 19 years old Karani from Opitos football club.

     Global Giving Highlighting VAP!

It’s because of your generous support towards our programs that Global Giving has chosen our stories as amongst the most impressive stories of the year 2016 and highlighted this on Global Giving website. It’s our pleasure to share out our success with you being one of the people who make it happen through your generous contribution. You make check us out via Our Top 16 Stories from 2016 and please keep making it happen by continue making your contribution.Once you have clicked on the link,scroll to story number 14.