The blue sky opened up, as the sun peeped through the scattered clouds. After doing my home chores, I ran to the playing ground unaware that a seed and a new vision will be planted in my heart. The warm afternoon could not stop us from enjoying the beautiful game of football. Suddenly something disrupted the play and there came the National Coca-Cola under 17 team player who also featured as the Mathare United under 16 team goalkeeper. Maintaining his composure with a smile, he expertly took us through a session on adolescent growth and development- focusing on changes in our bodies during puberty. The topic was as so interesting but as any other 10 year old kid around me, we did not know what and why Wille was doing this. Later on I came to know what it meant and that act was called peer education. He was young and already a role model, so there was no way that we could not listen to him. I was inspired and the thought of me doing it as he did remained vivid in my thoughts for a long time. At that time I only saw myself successful and a motivator.  Little I did not know that a few years later my coach Saidi Hamisi who was also a Peer Educator under the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) would nurture that interest.

In the year 2000, I was nominated by my Zonal League Committee to attend MYSA Peer education and life skills training. I felt over the moon as the discussions in the workshops demystified my perception and attitude around sexuality and health in this regard HIV and AIDS Prevention and Awareness. Everyone in the workshop became more open with each other as the facilitators did their thing. I eventually lost the consciousness of my ‘Agikuyu’ culture, religion ideologies and customs that made sexuality a taboo and speaking about sex a sin. I was privileged to explore my sexuality and as the Chinese proverbs stated, “understanding once sexuality is the beginning of civilization” became real to me. I was fired up after the training and was ready to go back to my community to share the experiences and learning and thus I became a Peer Educator and a king in my own new world. In fact, during our field work, which was based on merely putting kids down and repeating some facts led to us being branded by the kids, “Watu wa Ukimwi” The AIDS People. They could literally run or hide away from us, but that did not stop me. I wanted to be like my coach and like Wille, period!

Later in 2003 I was nominated to participate in the Kicking AIDS Out Peer Leader training that was facilitated by Isaac Kere and George Nange in Laikipia. This was a life transforming experience as life skills was integrated with play. The Kicking AIDS Out concept was unique and very new to us. In fact we never thought that sport itself was life skills, the principles in it, the play and everything that came with it. When we started playing and developing games, I felt baptized and promised myself that I will never stand and preach again to my peers but I will involve them and that will be key towards fostering behavior change among them. We were very excited; optimistic and had a lot of expectations on how we are going to surprise our peers and teams in our zones with this new concept. What we did not know, and I came to learn later is that we were equally transforming with every activity and with every game that went out with a message. I eventually became a role model and live it to date. And what is being a role model if you can’t practice what you preach? I am glad I preach water and drink it as well.

During our first visits to the different MYSA zones after the training, young people and children were attracted to us and they came in big numbers as high as 50 to 150 in one outreach as they enjoyed playing the games we had come up with. As children came running for the games-we took some of the games and explored sports skills and related the games with life skills in post activity discussions that focused on thematic issues such as stigma and discussion around HIV and AIDS, Substance Abuse, Rape, Gender based violence among others.

With time, we realized that children were no longer interested with “OLD” games so we were challenged to come up with new ones. Some of us invented games that were named after them such as Roma 1 which was named after Roma (a Peer Leader) We also got one game from an Intern in MYSA from U.S.A that we named after him too,”mzungu question mark” which means European question mark in his honor. This has been a continuous process and we are learning to invent new and innovative games for different sex and age group. This has helped me keep off risky behaviors as I have been using condoms correctly and consistently during sex with my girlfriend.

As peer pressure took center stage of my friends, I stood firm on my ground avoided issues like multiple sexual partners that could expose me to HIV and other sexually transmitted infections including making my girl friend pregnant while not prepared. I am also proud to be among the few young Kenyans who take HIV test after every three months as required for health. ‘Najijua’ I know myself- (meaning status). I have been inspired to further my studies in health science fraternity as am now pursuing a higher diploma in counseling psychology and recently trained as a Voluntary Counseling and Testing counselor. I have also been trained on Voluntary Counseling and testing, Advocacy, ASRH and Rights, gender, cross cultural dialogue, drugs, human wellness, behavior change communication and strategic behavior change, Youth leadership among others.

I am a Trainer of trainer in peer education having trained for local and international organizations such as GTZ, National Organization of Peer Educators, DSW and AMREF Kenya. I’m now a practicing consultant in Peer education training, VCT counselor, peer educator and Youth leader.

I am grateful to have been nominated as the peer educator of the year in 2004 and Kicking AIDS Out Peer Leader of the year in 2006, elected chairperson of the HIV and AIDS project 2004 and 2006 respectively and ultimately elected Chairperson of the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) Executive council –The MYSA decision making body. In March, 2009 I was upgraded as Kicking AIDS Out Leader level 1.

Life is all a smile………..as I look back on my life since my birth 23 years ago. Having under gone a peer education training. I smile all along as I reflect on the challenges I faced especially during my teenage. One day a we went to a youth exchange program at a Counseling and Testing site, we were challenged to walk our talk as peer educators, though not confident, I took the challenge and am a happy man now. This has facilitated me participate in an exiting life fulfilling opportunity with a world renown music superstar called Kelly Rowland formally of the destiny child ,she is also the Staying Alive ambassador, we took a public HIV test with Kelly Rowland in 2008 for the Staying Alive /MTV global campaign named “Kelley Rowland’s diary”. For more information log on http://www.staying-alive.org/en/shows/long_form/kelly_rowland_part_2

I have represented MYSA in both local and international youth exchange programs such as Norway, Netherlands, South Africa and Tanzania among others.