"Pamoja Mtaani", Swahili for "Together in the Hood", is the first multi-player PC video game to try to teach young people how to avoid HIV infection. Players assume the identity of one of five characters who find themselves car-jacked in a matatu (minibus taxi) and attempt to recover their stolen goods and save an injured woman. Through a series of sub-plots, the players are put into positions where the decisions they make can put them at risk of contracting or preventing HIV infection.
"You are able to relate to the behaviour of any one of the characters in the video game and you are able to discard bad behaviour … [such as] using drugs because you can actually see drug abuse leads that particular character into acquiring HIV due to recklessness," said Perpetua Nduku, one of the young people at the Mukuru community centre, which is visited by about 35 teens a day - 50 a day at the weekend.
