KATAA Initiative

StAY ALIVE Mission

StAY [St Andrews Youth] Alive Fellowship is the Youth arm of the ACK St Andrews Church in Zimmerman Nairobi. StAY Alive Fellowship exists as an arm of the Church to proclaim the message of Christ through prayers, fellowship, mission and training enabling the youth to mature spiritually to fight as good soldiers of Christ and thus attain the crown when Christ returns.

Vision

: “…for what good is it for man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his soul…”Mark 8:36.”
StAY Alive seeks to be an instrument of God to build the kingdom God based on God’s truth by enabling the people of God to live by God’s standard into the fullness of

We acknowledge that our mission cannot be complete without reaching out to the young people in our society. Many social ills continue to affect our country’s young people therefore we agree that we need to be instruments of change both in our society and country at large, if the social illness is to be reversed. We have identified the areas in which our young are being affected most and have taken up the challenge to change this by impacting on the society around us. We have zeroed in on what has affected us most being, sexual immorality and the related AIDS/HIV pandemic and drug abuse.

KATAA is an acronym for Keepin’ Away Threatening Abuse & Addiction

As stated in our mission, we have a series of activities which we carry out to enable us fight the ills affecting us. We however acknowledge that without involving ourselves in society development and social works, our mission will only be a citation which does not have a lot of meaning.

Main Goal and Objectives:
The main goal of the Initiative is to assist in DEMAND REDUCTION. This is based on certain fundamental principals which include: -

• “Prevention is better than cure”: Providing information on drugs and drug abuse is crucial to enable our youth make informed decisions.
•Showing the co-relation between drugs and HIV/AIDS.
•Providing interventions to drug users and addicts by giving tit-bits on how to kick the habit and/or referring them to places where they can get assistance.
•Pointing the way to the One who can “fill the void” which we seek to fill with drugs. In this regard we seek to substitute the impact of drugs with Jesus Christ.

From the above goal and principles the following outcomes are expected:
•A reduction in the drug abuse menace in our society. Starting from our immediate environs, to the entire city and hopefully the nation, we envisage a future society that is drugs free.
•An enlightened community with respect to the dangers of being involved in drugs either use or trafficking (drug abuse).
•A Help Centre for people already entangled in drugs and substance abuse.
•A Resource and Co-ordination Base/Centre for Anti-Drugs Abuse Campaigners within
our immediate environment.

Other objectives of the KATAA Initiative are:
(a) To equip and prepare the KATAA Programme participants, especially the StAY Alive members, now and in future so that they can effectively reach out to the drug addicts and to the society.
(b) To equip the community i.e. spouses, guardians, siblings, peers on how to handle and cope with such affected individuals, addicts and susceptible parties.

Drugs and substance abuse continues to be a major challenge in our society today. It is sweeping generations away as it makes more and more people redundant as a result of being hooked up.

In as much as most people know the harmful effects of these drugs and substances, they still continue to engage in them. Well, others do not know about them - they do not have knowledge on the drugs and substances. Well, information empowers us to make choices in life.

In this light, we have taken up to share what we have been able to gather over the years on drugs and substance abuse.

The info we will share with you may from time to time on drugs and substance abuse not be as exhaustive but we hope it will be of great help to each one of us. We shall from time to time be posting the information.

Audience of One:: The Debut StAY Alive CD Is Out

NI YESU TU!!

Thats true; its all about Jesus, and that is what StAY Alive set out to achieve with this fresh CD. This 11 track CD is done exclusively in swahili.

All songs except one are vertical, meaning they speak to God directly. From the passionate lead single 'Wewe Wa Ajabu' declaring to God about His Awesomeness to the mellow two instrument thanks sacrifice 'Ni Asante', its a treat all through.

Fusion of genres can be felt all through the CD. With the jazzy tinged 'Zaburi 23', the soft rock infused 'Yesu - Nitakusifu Milele' and the benga / salsa fusion on 'Watawala' providing for lovely listenership.

You will connect with the soulful ballad 'Kuwa Nawe' while 'Mungu Ibariki Afrika' and 'Sala' give the CD a truly authentic african touch.

The CD closes with an invitation 'Njoo Kwake' welcoming all who may not have a personal relationship with Christ to come to Him. This banger will get your head popping and the rap flow within the song ably brought out by Core-Law (an upcoming teen rapper) setting you on edge. The song closes on high with a reminder that its all about Christ.

With all sounding right, it is good to point out one definite low! The group is obviously comfortable within live band domain. Achieving a live feel within a studio setting has proved a heavy task to achieve. However, this does not remove the shine off the album and only encourages one to look out for their live performances.

For their first outing this CD is amazing. Growth can only be expected since the group has used resources exclusively available with members, be it composition, arrangement, engineering, production, instrumentation, the entire works. Kudos.

If you aint got this CD yet, get yourself one and immerse yourself into a worship to the audience of one.