Background Information:

The six boys from London attend a youth project called 'The Drum' run by London City YMCA. Through their youth project they learn about health issues affecting young people. The London City YMCA is part of an international network of YMCAs, so they also get the chance to find out about young people in other parts of the world.

The group had been emailing some young people in the Gambia, in West Africa, finding out about the issues affecting them and seeing if they could work together on a joint project.

They came up with an idea for a collaborative video project, designed to raise awareness of HIV / AIDS - a video that would be mainly used in the Gambia, and would be shown on Gambian television. Because literacy levels are around 50 per cent in the Gambia, video is an important way of spreading information and raising awareness. So, a second part of the project involved kitting out the Gambian YMCA with video equipment so they can make other educational programmes in future.

HIV and AIDS rates are relatively low in the Gambia, but they have risen substantially in the past decade. Cases are severely under-reported because there is such stigma attached to having the virus.

Religion plays an important part in life in the Gambia and the country is 95 per cent Muslim. The remaining 5 per cent of the population is Christian. Religious leaders from both faiths in the Gambia preach the importance of abstaining from sex before marriage. Even though HIV can be spread in other ways, the one people focus on is sex. Someone with HIV is someone who has had sex - and if this is outside marriage it is frowned upon. It makes it hard to spread messages about the importance of condom use to stop the spread of the virus.

In recent years the government has been introducing campaigns that talk about preventing HIV by abstaining from sex. They go on to say that if people can't abstain, then they should use a condom. The message still hasn't changed everyone's minds, and it is not popular with all religious leaders.

The two groups of young people carry out their research for their video in two main places ...

Kabakel is a rural village in the Gambia where the Gambian YMCA has been supporting a variety of different projects. This includes support to a woman in the village who nurses people through illnesses, and helps people to take preventative health measures. The young people meet a singer who helps to spread health messages through song.

Santa Yalla is a community of people who are HIV positive. It's the only centre where people with the virus can meet and be open about their status. The people at the centre are hoping to change people's attitudes to reduce the stigma.