From variety.com (via gamepolitics.com):

Here’s a very cool use of videogames for a great cause.

As part of a larger corporate partnership with the U.S. government, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is launching a free multi-player PC game in Kenya intended to change HIV risk perception, attitude and behavior. Called “Pamoja Mtaani” (”Together in the Hood”), it’s launching in youth centers in Nairobi, Kenya.

This is how WBIE describes it:

The “Pamoja Mtaani” game, developed by noted serious games developer, Virtual Heroes, Inc., follows five strangers who are brought together through unforeseen circumstances, losing what is most precious to each of them. Working their way through various East African neighborhoods, players must recover the stolen items and help an injured woman on their quest. Along the way, they will experience barriers and facilitators to behavior change through a variety of missions and mini-games.

The five person game, which can be played via LAN, also has music from Kenyan hip-hop artists. All of the characters are being introduced via trailers that the studio is producing.

Source

From mediaglobal.org:

“Cell phone games are nothing new. But four cell phone games released by ZMQ Software Systems in 2005 is an invention that has hitherto been unknown. The games are unconventional in that they have a unique objective of their own: to increase HIV/AIDS awareness.

Increasing HIV/AIDS awareness through the use of cell phones ensures maximum impact. ZMQ Software Systems calls it the “device of the future.” When the organization launched the ‘Freedom HIV/AIDS’ campaign in India in 2005 and Africa in 2006, cell phones were involved – in the interest of creating maximum impact.”

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