More than 7,000 Kenyan children have been made aware of Aids prevention, thanks to the dedication of an Oxford man who has spent the last six months on the road in Africa.

Ben Ramsbottom, 24, from Stile Road, Headington, has just returned to England after spending half a year taking his own scheme called the Gaffer Project to schools in football-mad Kenya.

Gaffer stands for Goalposts And Footballs for East Africa, and the former Cheney School pupil spent his time taking football equipment to villages and coaching children in the Kasigau and Maungu regions about 120 kms from the east coast of Kenya.

Aids is a huge problem in Kenya, with up to 18 per cent of the population diagnosed with the condition in some areas.

During the visits he provided a mixture of Aids prevention lessons and football coaching with specially designed puncture proof balls featuring Aids awareness messages.

He also set up the Kasigau Champions League which now provides competitive football for 402 men playing in 12 teams, drawn from villages across the region.

Mr Ramsbottom said: "It has been a lot more successful than I thought it would have been. The best thing is that we have brought all the villages together through football and got across an important health message to a lot of people."

Mr Ramsbottom was shocked by what he found in some textbooks at rural schools when he went to provide HIV lessons.

He said: "The trouble is anyone can just turn up there and say 'I know about HIV' and they will listen.

"After a visit to one rural school and a discussion with the teachers about their HIV education curriculum I made a slightly disturbing discovery: the HIV book that was educating 500 young adults had some views which had to be seen to be believed.

"On contraception it said: 'Contraceptives have done more harm to relationships than anything else in the history of mankind.' "On sex before marriage it said: 'Having sex before marriage may even kill you' and on homosexuals it read: 'It is definitely abnormal and perhaps requires medical treatment.'"

Mr Ramsbottom gave handouts covering the basic facts about HIV and Aids as well as advice for HIV positive individuals. Posters featuring famous sports stars which carried Aids education messages were used to instigate discussions in the class about the issues involved.

He added: "At this point everyone was a bit tired of talking, so for some light relief I showed some football. After that a brilliant DVD called The Three Amigos was shown.

"It features three animated, talking condoms who go through different situations in Kiswahili. The class loved the mix of humour and entert- ainment."

Mr Ramsbottom, who qualified as an engineering graduate from Bristol University last year, is now starting a job, but the Gaffer project has been left in the capable hands of his assistant Kamau.

He added: "All the infrastructure is now in place and hopefully there is enough sponsorship to keep it going."