Community Fight Against HIV & AIDS

Combating sexual exploitation through education, livelihoods, and access to reproductive health services.

In Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city, it is estimated that between 50 and 60% of residents live in informal settlements; the highest proportion of all the nation’s cities. People living in these settlements face the effects of poverty on a daily basis. Unemployment is common and crime and gender-based violence rates are high. Women and girls are vulnerable to sexual exploitation to make ends meet, leading to unplanned pregnancies and higher rates of sexually transmitted infections. According to UNAIDS, in 2024, over 37% of new HIV infections in Kisumu county were among children and young people aged 10-24.

Egmont Partner Community Fight Against GBV & HIV (Community Fight) is making great strides in Kisumu to change these realities. The organisation was formed in 2015 by a group of women to support families affected by violence and HIV, establishing Kisumu's only safe house for child survivors of sexual violence. Today, they also undertake extensive awareness raising and preventative work across Kisumu.

Community Fight's current Egmont-supported project is a holistic support programme for vulnerable adolescent girls and young mothers from Kisumu's rural and urban informal settlements and surrounding counties.

The project combines two approaches, aimed to break cycles of vulnerability linked to sexual abuse and poverty: community-based mental health support through Friendship Benches, providing safe spaces, counselling and problem-solving therapy; and social and economic empowerment of girls and their caregivers to improve their longterm wellbeing.

As part of the project, Community Fight are training young people as Peer Educators to lead Friendship Bench sessions in schools and communities, offering confidential counselling and information on sexual health, HIV prevention, and sexual violence prevention and response.

To reduce the risk of exploitation linked to poverty, 150 caregivers are being trained in effective parenting, and inducted into savings and loan groups where they participate in business management, financial literacy training and can access small loans to boost their informal businesses. To further strengthen economic security, each savings group is also participating in training in poultry farming and being provided with chicks to rear.

To further protect at-risk girls and young women, school-aged girls are supported to stay in or return to education through provision of uniforms and learning materials while older girls and young mothers gain economic independence through skills training in garment making, hair and beauty therapy, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy.

To increase protection, awareness and reporting more widely, the project includes community sensitisation campaigns, including film screenings, school-based Children’s Rights Clubs and teacher training as well as confidential reporting mechanisms through 'suggestion boxes' in schools and a toll free helpline.

Finally, access to quality sexual health care is being strengthened through health camps to expand access to HIV prevention and treatment while Community Fight are training local hospitals in youth-friendly services to improve uptake of reproductive and sexual health care.