In 2001, 2.5 million people, or 15 percent of the Kenyan population, were living with HIV/AIDS. That same year, 190,000 Kenyans died of the disease. Some 11 million children under the age of 15 in sub-Saharan Africa had lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS, according to UNICEF figures. By 2010, that number is projected to be 20 million children. In Nairobi alone, the number of street children was more than 60,000 in 2000, an estimated 20 percent increase from 1999.
The conditions in Limuru are no different. Prostitution is prevalent, as are excessive consumption of alcohol and high levels of unemployment. This has resulted in high incidences of family breakdown and death rates due to AIDS. Children go to the streets at a very early age and child labor and prostitution is widespread.
Grace addresses the HIV/AIDS problem through its school curriculum and through public education and counseling. Grace's Director, Rev. Samuel Wambugu, regularly employs his pastoral counseling skills as he speaks to community groups, churches and other schools about HIV/AIDS. He also uses the funerals that he all too often conducts for victims of the disease as forums to educate those attending about HIV/AIDS causes and prevention.
