HIV

Encouraging young people to share openly about their experiences as they grow up, the pressures they’re under, their relationships, the risks they might take… pregnancy, the HIV thing, all of that… can be challenging! Once they get to a certain age, they will always know better than you – and they certainly won’t want to tell you about it.

Giving them puppets (ice-breaking marvels that they are) and maybe having the girls be boys and the boys be girls, acting out each other’s worries and behaviours etc, can disarm this stand-off and suddenly things are a little fun and fascinating. Is that seriously what the opposite sex thinks?

It’s an idea that leads on naturally from our 24-Hour Challenge film, one of three that make up the Kibing series in which behaviours linked to gender equality, stigma, and protection issues are explored through the extraordinary lens of Kibii Kabooka Kibing, a stranger who arrives out of nowhere with his animal companions to face a challenge akin to something off a TV game show. Kibing seems harmless, but there’s always a strange, magical undercurrent and a change in the wind the day he appears – and why has he singled you out?

The films - Will This Be Your Life? (child protection), The 24-Hour Challenge (gender), and Do You Know It All (stigma) - have been disseminated as part of HIV programmes in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

  • Gender. Unbeknown to Matthew, his sister is harassed by a much older man.

  • Abadab’s wheel of fortune. Do You Know It All? (Stigma).

  • Will Daisy make the right choice as she gambles with her future?

  • Clifford is very attentive. But will it last?

  • The mysterious Kabing and companions.

  • Kibing’s talking crow side-kick.

WILL THIS BE YOUR LIFE? CLIP
A film exploring Protection Issues

Daisy falls for Clifford when he pulls up on his motorbike and offers her gifts. Of course she does – she’s growing up, she’s being noticed, and he’s handsome! When she starts hanging out with Clifford, she grows up big time, but the excitement comes to a screeching halt when she finds out she’s pregnant, she has HIV, and Clifford wants nothing more to do with her.

Because Daisy is a puppet it is easy to be sympathetic as we consider the choices life puts in her path as she exits childhood, and the excitement, peer pressure, and downright unfairness that surround them all. The film works as a powerful catalyst to discuss difficult issues, and of course it helps to have Daisy and Clifford to refer to rather than ourselves. The aim is that by sharing and hearing one another, girls and boys will strengthen healthy and positive attitudes towards behavioural norms.

THE 24-HOUR CHALLENGE: CLIP
A film exploring Gender Issues

The second Kibing film, The 24 Hour Challenge, is about seeing life from someone else’s shoes. Girls’ shoes, to be specific.

Joseph and Matthew are two young friends with no idea that each of their older sisters would love to go to school as they do. They’re also unaware that one of their sisters is due to marry a much older man the very next day, while the other is plagued by a leering drunk. Kibing challenges them to spend 24 hours as their sisters, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.

The idea for the film came from a childhood experience of No Strings Creative Designer Michael Frith when he sneaked into an 18-certificate film at the cinema, dressing up as a girl with make-up to look older. Travelling home, he gained the attention of some older men, and the encounter shook him. Was this really something girls experienced all the time?

DO YOU KNOW IT ALL? CLIP
A film exploring Stigma Issues

“Keep away. He has HIV,” warns Simon.

The third film in the Kibing series, Do You Know It All, develops awareness about how HIV spreads, as well as how it doesn’t, and thus challenges dangerous, stigmatising attitudes. On the surface it is a simple tale, but it opens up emotive issues.

Kibing enters the village with a huge spinning wheel and immediately picks out Simon Mukuba to enter his high-prize quiz. Simon knows it all and his influence in the village is considerable. The boy with no parents? Don’t go near him. Don’t touch his ball. And so on.

Infectious disease is rightly feared, but sometimes this fear creates a breeding ground for rumours and misinformation that can make people more vulnerable instead of less. How do we deal with the Simon Mukuba inside all of us? And how does this film relate to other infectious diseases, like Ebola or Covid?