Where God Weeps - the suffering church in focus

Kenya: The Catholic Church and the AIDS Crisis

View the country profile of Kenya.

Breaking News from Kenya

• 01/12/2010: Africa: The Catholic Church is Africa’s primary care giver for AIDS victims

Short film about the Catholic Church and the AIDS crisis, featuring Bishop Alfred Rotich.

Kenya, a nation with a population of some 40 million - of which fully one third is Catholic - is one of Africa's economic powerhouses and yet, at the same time, approximately 60% of the population live below the poverty line. The UN defines poverty as earning less than US $ 1.5 per day per person; a masquerade when one considers that in Kenyan urban areas, the cost of life is no lower than that of many European or North American countries.

Poverty is compounded by disease - notably AIDS. Around 200 to 300 Kenyans die everyday of AIDS, 1 in 20 children are infected every year and and 50 percent of suspected HIV-positive children are dead by the time they reach two years of age. Government officials fear that the pandemic is on the rise among Kenyan youth. Those who die as a result of AIDS are often fathers and mothers leaving the children without any means of support. There are nearly 1 million AIDS orphans in Kenya. Orphanages and schools for orphans are run exclusively by Catholic institutions.