With 3 million people in a vast landscape, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a huge country.  The HIV and AIDS problem is serious, made worse by years of civil war, anarchy and poverty. Around 5% of the population is HIV infected and 100,000  a year die from AIDS. The epidemic is still in a relatively early stage with capacity for massive further spread if urgent action is not taken now. Communications are difficult, distances are great, and infrastructure can be lacking.

Yvonne Kavuo leads the ACET Congo team, based in Goma and Kinshasa.  From these two centres teams work in schools, churches and Sunday schools in HIV prevention and training as well as caring for orphans.

In addition Yvonne broadcasts weekly on HIV and AIDS on a national radio station, reaching over 3 million people.

The team aim to encourage local church leaders to mobilise their congregations and communities and typical is this story:

John and Esther Ngoy attended ACET education activities because they were concerned about their own children first but also about the friends of their children in the neighbourhood. They shared with ACET that one day a 16 year old girl who is a friend of their daughter said: “My friends are putting pressure on me to have a sexual experience and they say I should not be their friends because I am worthless. What can I do?" This question said something to them as parents.  They said "We cannot prevent our daughters to have friends. So we had to do something about it but we did not know how to start." With ACET they began HIV education activities in their home so that their own children and their friends in the church and their neighbourhood can benefit.

Since January 2008, every fortnight they met to discuss relationships, friendship, communication, sexuality and sexual health, STIs, HIV and AIDS etc. As a result of this activity, the club grew very fast from 15 to 70 children such that the sitting room which accommodated the activities became too small. They decided to train youth leaders and Sunday school teachers of their Church (at the University chaplaincy). Life skills education is now integrated in the regular activities in the Sunday school.

The text of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13 of Scripture has been very useful because many children (girls especially) realise that they have been sexually abused and they come for counselling. Since children below the age of 18 cannot undertake Voluntary Counselling and testing without the permission of their parents (according to Government regulations), a programme for parents was started so that the healing process could be effective at family level.