Synopsis

Filmmaker Miles Roston first met Kevin Sumba in 2001 in Kisumu, Kenya. Kevin’s mother had died of AIDS two years earlier, leaving him alone from the age of 10. To support himself, he roasted peanuts. Unable to afford school fees but determined to get an education, he would sneak into the classroom,. He cooked for himself and went to sleep in his hut by himself every night, as he says, “very lonely”. Finally, with the help of a charity and Pandipieri Catholic Centre, he was able to officially attend school.

Like young people around the world, he wants a future. Now, almost 17, he wants to know if he really has one. Like much of sub-Saharan Africa, his country is hard hit by the AIDS epidemic. Home to the Luo tribe, Kisumu has an HIV infection rate of over 22 percent, the highest in the Kenya, and approximately 40 percent of women between the ages of 18-34 are HIV positive. But when his elder in the community, Albert, tells him, a devout Christian, No matter what, do not use a condom, but pray to the Lord, Kevin listens intently.

Kevin needs to know more. He needs to understand what is being done to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic. He asks: What responsibilities these leaders will take to ensure that people do not suffer much, especially orphans? He wants to know if there is a cure for the disease and if only a treatment, whether it is available to those suffering? He wants to know if other teenagers in other communities and countries are facing similar problems or even know of the disease, considering the stigma attached to it.

With no phone and no electricity, Kevin begins his quest in his own poor community and, with Miles Roston’s help, his questions are taken globally to the world leaders and scientists in the fight against the epidemic, beginning at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand to leaders such as Mary Robinson, executives from Roche Pharmaceuticals, and Senator Mechai, host of the conference.

At home, Kevin meets Edwina, now 21, who got HIV from her husband at age 15. Bravely telling her community she is HIV positive and subsequently shunned by them, she is writing a memory book to prepare her 4-year old son for her death. He sits with Jane, a dying woman at 40, who cannot deal with leaving her children behind. “Only God will know what to do with them.” At the Voluntary Testing and Centre, the nurse tells him even the health workers are dying, and that safe sex with condoms is the only method of prevention they know. But Kevin has been clearly told not to use them.

Kevin speaks to everyone in his community he can. Few use condoms. Some say it’s against God’s will; some men say it’s like “taking tea without sugar. And you have to have tea with sugar.” He confronts the Mayor of his plagued community. She declares that the only solution is: “to abstain. That is why we are spreading the gospel of abstention.”

Desperate to know the truth, Kevin travels 500km to the capital, Nairobi. In the city, he discovers that orphans like him are also told to abstain by their teachers; “that condoms have microscopic holes which the virus can pass through.” He even meets the Archbishop, Ndingi Mwana A’Nzeki, who tells him – that sex is only for married people and "condoms are out". He learns that even the President of the United States is promoting abstinence.

Kevin’s growing belief in abstinence is challenged when he meets 16-year-old Humphrey at a Catholic Children’s Home for HIV positive children in Nyumbani. Humphrey and Father D’Agostino, the priest who began the orphanage, tell him if one can’t abstain, then better to use a condom. And Humphrey knows about AIDS. The graveyard at Nyumbani is filled with his friends, before they could get the anti-retroviral drugs.

Kevin, moved, and wanting to understand the medicine, looks into this further. He seeks out AIDS patients, some on drugs, some still refusing to even test for HIV. He meets Kenyan medical experts, even Charity Ngilu, the Minister of Health who tells him she does not have enough resources and that … “no one should deny someone their right to use condoms or not to use condoms.”

Other young people, also needing to understand the epidemic that plagues their generation, follow up and taken on Kevin’s quest and questions around the globe. As condoms have been disparaged, Max and Senye, two medical students from Botswana, one of the worst hit countries by the AIDS epidemic, studying in Melbourne, Australia, ask whether other forms of prevention are feasible. And in Melbourne, cutting edge research into HIV prevention is taking place. Max and Senye meet scientists who have invented a microbicide for women to protect themselves against men (including one claim that lemon juice could prevent infection). They investigate the possibility that circumcision for men may eventually reduce transmitting HIV. But they discover, at the moment, it’s condoms that are the best scientifically proven prevention.

In Basel, Switzerland, executives from Roche Pharmaceuticals face questions from Julia, a young girl touched by the plight of AIDS orphans. She wants to understand what Roche is doing about getting drugs to patients, considering the company invented two of the four classes of anti-retroviral drugs.

In Thailand, a young man, Ponlapat, training to be an AIDS awareness leader, meets HIV positive children in a Buddhist orphanage, and discovers that in Buddhism condoms are not forbidden, as they “weren’t around in Lord Buddha’s time.” Senator Mechai, host of the AIDS conference, tells Ponlapat that, in the next life, he should not look for the religious leader who told Kevin not to use condoms in heaven; he will only find him in hell. Mechai’s organization, contrary to the wishes of the US Administration, hands out condoms to young prostitutes; many, like Kevin and Ponlapat, still going to school.

In New York, Carolina, 17 and set on going to her school prom, puts Kevin’s questions to leaders such as Thoraya Obaid, head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) who also emphasizes abstinence. “There is a formula to protect oneself, and we call it the ABC. Abstinence as long as you can, B for Be Faithful meaning one partner, and C for condom use. This is the only approach that Kevin can do to protect himself.” Mary Robinson, former UN Commissioner of Human Rights, and economist Jeffrey Sachs, special advisor to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, suggest that yes by law Kevin has a right to basic care and medicine; but unless he takes matters in his own hands and unites with others like him, he will not be heard.

Determined to understand his rights, Kevin meets child rights activists and children living on the streets of Nairobi, children desperate for food and education. He meets an older and rehabilitated street child from the National Youth Service, who used to do drugs and whose friends were so bad “they wouldn’t mind killing people.” Kevin meets Dr. Manu Chandaria, powerful industrialist and Chairman of the Board of the National Youth. He tells him, “Poverty is not a crime. But if you don't talk, how can you find solutions? How would I know that you're poor? You’ve got to organize others like yourself. “

Finally, Kevin gets to confront the man overseeing the future of orphans like him in the entire country, the Vice President of Kenya and Minister of Home Affairs, Hon. A.A. Moody Awori. Even he doesn’t seem to have all the answers, but rather wants to know what Kevin is going to do about the epidemic.

What can Kevin do on his return to Kisumu? Are those he met with AIDS still alive? What about the other orphans, devastated in his community?

This film is Kevin’s journey. It’s a film about his struggles to overcome his own denial of his mother’s AIDS, his awakening sexuality, and the contrasting opinions, abstinence versus condoms, of policy makers and their effect of those opinions to people facing decisions with life or death consequences on the ground around the world. This is a gripping, sometimes humorous, and ultimately moving film about a teenager who now must dare to make a difference or face a desperate future. As the realities of the epidemic become ever more real to this young man, caught in its midst, the audience too will be able to see past the political rhetoric into the millions of individual adults and children struggling to survive what Nelson Mandela has called the greatest threat “in the course of human history.”