The AIDS virus that swept across Africa claiming the lives of the equivalent of the entire combined populations of London and New York by 2007, has had a devastating impact on Cameroon, leaving 300,000 children orphaned and 45,000 of them infected themselves out of a child population of 9.142,000. Recent statistics indicate that overall 5.1% of Cameroon's population is infected with AIDS; that's 500,000 people accounting for one out of every twenty of the population, and 60% of those infected are female having significant implications for transmission of the virus through pregnancy.

Scientists now believe that the forbearer of AIDS actually began in Cameroon after they detected a strain of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus in Cameroon chimpanzee colonies ~ SIV being a 'viral ancestor' of the HIV-1 virus that causes AIDS in humans. Disturbingly there are reports of a new strain of the virus that causes AIDS being identified in Cameroon in recent years. Today it is spread through mother to baby but also through the behaviours of young people in particular with Cameroon having the highest prevalence of the disease amongst young people in the region running at 6.9%. As such, most focus has been placed on education, reaching out to young people in school and youth centres.

One group that is particularly hard to educate are the street children who are out of regulated contact with society and their situation is compounded further by the number of boys in particular who are picked up off the streets and placed in prison often for many months or even years for activities such as begging or smoking, let alone stealing. They share cells and areas within the prison with older men who are often AIDS infected and catch the virus themselves when abused. This video recounts the story of an AIDS infected mother of two whose five year old son Giam is also positive and how they receive free paediatric AIDS treatment with the help of UNICEF.