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Based on oral history accounts elicited from 25 Gikuyu elders in Kenya, this paper describes a non-penetrative sexual practice, ngweko, permitted for the sake of pleasure and sexual release among circumcised and unmarried young people in the Gikuyu community. Lessons that can be learned from the pre-colonial Gikuyu sexuality culture are identified, and possible implications for contemporary sexuality education explored.

Within a conceptual framework of Sen's capability approach, the paper explores aspects of girls' retention in Kajiado schools, Kenya. Drawing on a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with 24 girls in four schools, the paper discusses the "unfreedoms" the girls experience in relation to environmental, infrastructural and economic constraints, as well as the personal unfreedoms they experience in relation to their gender. The study found that despite these constraints, girls' retention was linked to their zeal for education and to the part played by key people, supporting and encouraging them and sometimes acting as catalysts for change.

Three decades since the onset of HIV/AIDS, 33.2 million people worldwide are infected and prevalence in Kenya is on the rise. This paper contributes to discussions about HIV/AIDS education and draws on the health promotion approach and the emancipatory theory of Paulo Freire. Freire argued that through dialogue people unveil their world. The researchers used the method of dialogue to facilitate parents' and teachers' reflections on sexuality education for the children. The dialogues seemed to facilitate some reflection and showed the attitudes of the community to matters that impact on sexuality education (e.g. gender and sexuality). This paper illustrates how dialogic processes can be useful to the process of constructing realistic and contextually relevant HIV/AIDS education. The challenges for the researcher as an outsider are also discussed. (Contains 2 notes.)

In spite of numerous HIV/AIDS-prevention education efforts, the HIV infection rates in sub-Saharan Africa remain high. Exploring and understanding the reasons behind these infection rates is imperative in a bid to offer life skills and moral education that address the root causes of the pandemic. In a recent study concerning effective HIV/AIDS-prevention education, conducted in Tanzania and Kenya among teacher trainees and their tutors, the notion of "mila potofu" (defined by educators as "deceptive" cultural practices) emerged as a key reason for educators' difficulties in teaching HIV/AIDS prevention education in schools and for high HIV infection rates. Since these cultural practices cause harm, and in many cases lead to death, they are of moral concern. This paper outlines some of these cultural practices identified by educators, including "wife inheritance", "sexual cleansing" and the taboo against certain foods, and discusses how these practices contribute towards HIV/AIDS vulnerability. It then offers recommendations for classroom-based life skills and moral education following Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development in understanding how "assimilation", "accommodation" and "adaptation" can help people discard "mila potofu" in a culturally sensitive manner.

Twenty-five years since the onset of HIV/AIDS, young people aged 15-24 now make up half of new HIV infections. This paper advocates for comprehensive sexuality education as an effective panacea to reverse this, with teachers stepping up and embracing their role as sexuality educators. The exploration of this challenge is informed by a small-scale participatory study of teacher responses in a rural primary school in Nakuru district, Kenya. Dialogue was held with 18 teachers (11 females, seven males) on the challenges they faced in teaching sexuality education and teachers emerged as disorientated and embarrassed in conversations about sexuality issues with the pupils. Because sexuality education lacks a curriculum, teachers have found it challenging to integrate it into regular subjects; they also observed that parents seem resistant to addressing this at home, and thus this task falls to them. In the study, a process of self-awareness of the need for them to step up and teach sexuality education emerges among the participants. A key finding is that participatory and dialectical interventions that can prepare teachers and develop their confidence in teaching sexuality education are required.