In 2003 I first mooted (See also 'Let October be an alcohol awareness month this year'
The People On Sunday March 21st., 2004) the need for a month in Kenya in which Kenyans would be engaged in discussing a particular aspect of the drug alcohol. Whether we talk on alcoholism, drunkenness, problem drinking, binge-drinking, under-age drinking, what is a unit, alcohol and women, drinking while pregnant and the whole gamut of topics which are closely associated with alcohol, the aim was to have the whole country engaged. Young and old –together discussing this drug sensibly with a view to changing our attitudes and behaviour to the use of this drug.

The needed for this annual event was easily recognised when one realised that alcohol being a socially acceptible drug, was now being consumed by a broad cross-section of Kenyan society without realsing the inherent dangers. Worse still there is no concerted and coordinated effort ebing made to educate Kenyans on this drug, yet alcohol misuse and abuse were responsible for a wide range of social ills and tragedies. These range from domestic violence, motor vehicle accidents to family disintegration and massive losses to employers.

Constant deaths or cases of Kenyans needlessly ending up permanently blind from drinking adulterated bootleg liqour are other issues that need to be adressed once and for all.

Probably the most tragic consequence of our casual attitudes to this casual relationship most Kenyans have with alcohol use was that it had now become a major contributing factor to the high HIV infection rates through casual and careless unprotected sex.

We would therfore have a month where the theme topic was concentrated on and subsequently awareness would continue on the same topic throughout the year until the following years theme took over and the whole cycle repeated.

Soon however we decided that since nobody seemed to have acted on the article (and a subsequent one I wrote) we would launch and run this annual event ourselves for it was a very effective method of outreach. But we would give any interested parties one year i.e. until October 1, 2004 and if by then there were still no takers the goinghomedotcom Trust would go ahead and launch this awareness month.

The reason October was selected was that it was on October 1, 2000 that I landed at the Asumbi Treatment Center rehabilitation center. It was also in October that I wrote my first story on alcoholism which appeared in the magazine section of the Saturday Nation, and later it was in October that President Kibaki also declared that he had stopped drinking. The end of October is also when people start gearing up for the Christmas festivities often characterised with excess alcohol consumption all round. In Germany there is the world-famous Oktoberfest, a real beer drink-fest, So Kenya’s would be an alcohol info-fest!

Meanwhile adverts in media being very expensive I usually wore T-shirts with one type of alcohol or other drug abuse message or another so that whenever I was giving talks on alcohol and other drug abuse in schools, churches, mosques, other institutions, on TV or just going around carrying out my day to day activities, I would also be carrying the message. I now decided to try for the Guinness Book of World Records attempt as a ‘human billboard’.

I would go for one year i.e. from October 1, 2003 to October 1, 2004. If by the time I managed this feat (October 1, 2004) nobody had come forward to take up the challenge of the National Alcohol Awareness Month (NAAM), then the goinghomedotcom Trust would proceed with it. This then is how the NAAM-Kenya was born.

Yet even as the the 1st. National Alcohol Awareness Month took off on the first of October 2004 with the theme “Alcohol and HIV/AIDS” I was prevailed upon to continue wearing the T-shirts and use this as a way to raise funds for subsequent NAAM’s, even as I continued to gun for the Guinness Book title.

Well-wishers could then sponsor me any amount per day to continue wearing these T-shirts with out a break, with the monies thus raised going to run this annual event.

This then is how I have ended up literally as a human billboard by wearing T-shirts with a drug abuse message every single day rain or shine or cold spell since October 1, 2003 up until today as we launch the 1st. National Alcohol Awareness Month - Kenya

Yours sincerely,

David Ogot snr.
Founder/Programmes Director,
goinghomedotcom Trust,
Office tel: +254 20 2738118 cell phone +254 733-989083,
Website: www.goinghomedotcom.org,
email: goinghomedotcom@yahoo.com,
P.O. Box 870 Uhuru Gardens 00517,
Nairobi,
KENYA.
1st. October 2004