A constricted path, iron sheet houses, roadside food vendors are the site that greets you when you visit Kiambiu slums that borders Eastleigh suburb in Nairobi.

“Welcome to Kiambiu,” says 42-year-old Jane*, dressed in a black jacket with a smiley face, as she ushers me into her single room.

Jane, who is a peer educator at Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme {BHESP}, started sex work back in 1995 in order to make ends meet.

“Life was not a walk in the park especially in slums so I had no choice but to venture into sex work at least to put food on the table,” explains the mother of four.

Jane reckons that during her early days in sex work majority of her peers were not well conversant with HIV prevention interventions consequently many including her were infected with HIV as in Kenya sex workers have the highest HIV prevalence of 29% among the key populations.

Girls and young women account for 67 percent of new HIV infections among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa.

Through the DREAMS Innovation Challenge, which is funded by PEPFAR and managed by JSI, the Bar Hostess Empowerment & Support Programme (BHESP) helps vulnerable adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Kenya to protect themselves from HIV infection, including through pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

PrEP is a daily dose of antiretroviral medication and is demonstrated to be up to 99 percent effective (depending on risk and adherence) for preventing HIV infection. Best of all, girls can self-administer it.