HIV Club in Kibera

Every Tuesday after school, the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th graders at Nazarene Primary School have “Chill Club”. To ‘chill’ is Kenyan slang for to abstain, and the children are being educated about HIV and the risks they run by having unprotected sex in an AIDS-ridden area like Kibera. I had the opportunity to lead Chill Club this week, and it was really meaningful to me. I started out by asking the kids to tell me some of the things they knew about what HIV was and how you could contract it, and then corrected misperceptions and let them ask questions and have a discussion.

They knew a lot of the basics—you can catch HIV from sex and blood transfusions but not from mosquitos or hugging. I asked if you could become infected by sharing a hairbrush with an infected person and got a resounding ‘YES!’ for the answer, so I explained that it was perfectly safe to share a hairbrush, just not a toothbrush in case there were sores or microscopic cuts that you don’t know about in the person’s mouth. I had fun with them coming up with many things you could do and not catch the disease, because it seems like these kids had been fear-drilled a bit into thinking that HIV was absolutely everywhere. Well it is so important that they know how to protect themselves, it’s also key to reduce the stigma they might be holding towards HIV-positive people in their lives. We discussed how it was okay to use a toilet after an HIV positive person (although I realized later that their access to toilets in Kibera is probably non-existent…), to share from a cup with an HIV+ friend, to read a book with an infected person, and to rub the back of a sick family member with AIDS. The biggest concern the kids had was kissing—they had been told that ‘deep kissing’ was one way to spread the virus. I explained to them that they would have to drink 5 liters of that person’s saliva before they would have any small chance of catching the virus, and held up my 1-liter water bottle for effect. Their minds were somewhat blown by this exciting development. We then discussed if you could tell if your partner was HIV+ just by looking at them. The kids thought that you could, and I was able to explain that someone can look completely normal and have the virus because it takes a long time to develop in your body into something that can make you sick. They were so interested to know this and became a little worried about how to know if their future partner was HIV- until we started talking about how before you marry someone or get a new partner you should trust them enough and be in a close enough relationship that you feel comfortable going to get tested together, which made a lot of sense to them.

I feel so lucky that I got to talk to my Kibera kids about an issue that I’ve learned so much about and feel so passionate about. Their minds were like sponges and the chaos that often ensues when I teach wasn’t present for Chill Club—the kids were eager to learn and share what they knew and didn’t get off topic at all.

The little ones leaving school by way of the trash dump that surrounds Nazarene Primary

The 'classrooms' of Nazarene are separated by USAID tarps

So much light and spirit in these kids!