Photo: Julius Mwelu/IRIN Sex workers use alleys to avoid paying for hotel rooms (PlusNews) - Over the course of the long nights Richard Omwenga spends guarding a building in Kenya’s port city of Mombasa, a series of young women accompanied by men duck into the alley next to the building... [view entry]

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons Two-thirds of HIV-positive Kenyans are either married or cohabiting (PlusNews) - Marriage is not a safe haven from HIV; in fact, the pandemic is spreading rapidly among married people in Kenya. This is the core message of a new campaign to discourage extramarital sex. “Wacha mpango... [view entry]

Photo: Anthony Kaminju/IRIN Insensitive language creates stigma MASENO - Young people have always been adept at creating witty ways to describe everyday life, but the language they use can be hurtful to people living with HIV; western Kenya’s Maseno University is now helping its students to stop using insensitive, stigmatizing... [view entry]

Photo: Kenneth Odiwuor/IRIN Girls who become involved with their teachers are often admired by their schoolmates For the past year, Karen Awuor*, 15, has had a new daily ritual– taking antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. She discovered she was HIV positive during an unintended pregnancy that forced her to drop out of... [view entry]

The Billion Tree Campaign has passed the three billion planted tree mark following a confirmation from the Government of Turkey that it planted over 300 million trees in 2008. According to the Turkish Ambassador to Kenya, H.E. Mr. S. Levent Sahinkaya, “A total of 305,362,000 trees were planted by the... [view entry]

Photo: Edgar Mwakaba/IRIN Mobile phone technology could be used to correctly diagnose and treat crop diseases The ability to correctly diagnose and treat crop diseases such as banana wilt via mobile phone is just one of endless possibilities for smallholder farmers if location-specific (geospatial) information were available, according to researchers... [view entry]

Nairobi, 25 March 2009 - Extensive forest fires are affecting several of Kenya’s key moisture reservoirs including the 400,000-hectare Mau Forest Complex, Kenya’s largest forest and the source of water for at least twelve rivers. Important Rift Valley Lakes, including Lake Victoria, the source of the River Nile, depend on... [view entry]

NAIROBI, - Bitter irony: in recent years Nairobi has experienced severe flooding and widespread water shortages, due to poor urban planning and collapsing infrastructure systems that are failing to support the Kenyan capital’s expanding population. ENVIRONMENT-KENYA Shem Oirere Large parts of the city are not properly served by water and... [view entry]

Photo: Julius Mwelu/IRIN A woman selling bananas in a Nairobi market (file photo): Food insecurity is set to escalate due to late long rains NAIROBI, (IRIN) - Food insecurity in Kenya, already affecting millions of people, is set to escalate because the long rains are late and unlikely to be... [view entry]

Photo: Kenya Food Security Group The area covered by the 2009 short rains food security assessment for Kenya NAIROBI, (IRIN) - Immediate, medium and long-term priority interventions, including controlling food prices, providing food aid and creating employment, are required to stop more Kenyans going hungry, an inter-agency assessment of the... [view entry]