Game4Life: Mobile Games in AIDS Education

HIV and AIDS has continued to impact communities and individuals differently and this can never be over emphasised. For this reason, organisations are coming up with different types of interventions in order to reduce the spread of the pandemic.

On Monday 13th October at MobileActive08, I attended a mini talk on "Game4Life: Mobile games in AIDS education". It was facilitated by Issmail Nnafie. The Games4Life is programme being implemented in Kenya by a Dutch non-governmental organisation called Hivos, in partnership with KPN, a Dutch telecom Company.

The programme is aimed at creating better awareness of the dangers of HIV and AIDS among 15-20 year old youngsters in Kenya through using mobile technology. It allows young people to learn and understand dangers of HIV and AIDS by playing games on their mobile phones. Currently Hivos is offering three cell phone games: a quiz game that provides general information on HIV and AIDS in a question and answer format and Java-based football and helicopter games.

The use of mobile phones to bring awareness of the dangers of HIV and AIDS comes as an alternative for young people who access entertaining Java games at high cost. On the other hand, the Game4Life games are a new and creative way preferred by young people over the traditional way of receiving health information in class sessions, and over TV and radio. The programme was well received by the youth, such that when it was launched 12 000 young people subscribed for the quiz game and 200 downloaded the Java Game.

The programme is also facing challenges in that after the launch the number of downloads was high, but decreased shortly after that. Technology has also posed challenges in that some phones can not play Java games -- hence the programme is focusing more on the quiz game for the future.