Kenya

VIJANA AMANI PAMOJA (VAP)

Vijana Amani Pamoja (VAP) was originally formed as a football club in 2003. It was formed in an area where the prevalence of HIV cases were skyrocketing. The majority of its players had become infected directly or indirectly, loosing either one or both parents to HIV.

The club developed into a community scheme that uses the power and the popularity of the game of football as a metaphor to fight HIV and was officially registered in 2006.

Today the mission is to integrate social and economic values through football by creating a pro-active healthy environment.

VAP focuses on creating awareness of:

HIV – through Skillz Kenya, a football based curriculum that focuses on both boys and girls
Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) – through the Goal program, which focuses on girls and young women
Employment and Entrepreneurship – through vocational training courses which focuses on graduates of all VAP programs
Maktaba Mtaani – through football and STEM, which focuses on both boys and girls using football to teach and advocate for STEM Education.

ORGANISATION DETAILS

PARTICIPANTS

Skillz Kenya targets both boys and girls aged 11-21 years old.

Maktaba Mtaani targets the same age group and both genders.
Goal program targets girls alone aged 11-21 years old while Employment and Entrepreneurship targets both genders aged 16 years to 25 years.

LOCATIONS

Nairobi

Country statistics

143 out of 189 in Human Development Index rankings (UNDP, 2020)

$1,840 Average annual salary per person (World Bank, 2020)

35.6% of people live below the poverty line (WFP, 2022)

Kenya is a country in Western Africa with a population of 55.8 million. Agriculture is the main sector, providing one third of the country’s GDP. About 75% of the population are employed in some capacity in the sector (CIA World Factbook, 2022).

Although reliable numbers are hard to find, unemployment and under-employment are extremely high, and could be near 40% of the population (CIA World Factbook, 2022).

More than a third (35.6%) of Kenyans live below the poverty line and 29% of children in rural areas have stunted growth (WFP, 2022)

In Kenya the right to housing is part of the constitution, which states: “Every person has the right to accessible and adequate housing, and to reasonable standards of sanitation.”

However, the housing deficit in Kenya is estimated at 2 million, meaning the government will need to build 250,000 new homes a year to plug the gap.

The government have committed to building 500,000 new houses but it is unlikely that these will be affordable for the majority of the population (The Conversation, 2022).

In 2019, a new levy was introduced making people pay 1.5% of their income to the housing fund. The total monthly payment per person will not exceed $50, but it is hoped that $500m will be raised every year. (BBC, 2019)

Between 2008 and 2021, more than 488,000 people have been displaced in Kenya due to conflict and 1.4 million people have been displaced by natural disasters (Internal Displacement, 2021) A drought in the North and East of the country in 2021 left 2.4 million at risk of hunger (France24, 2021).

An estimated 47% of the population live in slums. Due to the low living conditions, people are also at risk of contracting diseases from contaminated food and water (World Bank, 2018; The Conversation, 2020).

HIV and AIDS are prevalent in the country, in 2020 an estimated 29,000 people died as a result of contracting the infection (CIA World Factbook, 2022).