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PWAs involved in the workplace
Reposted courtesy of IRIN PlusNews (25 July 2002)
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A pilot programme run by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in South Africa has provided an opportunity for people living with HIV/AIDS to become involved in workplace responses to the epidemic.
A recent report by the South African Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS found that the response of the business community to HIV/AIDS was "seriously wanting". Most companies have done little to evaluate or monitor the extent of the epidemic among their workforce.
The Greater Involvement of People living with or affected by HIV/AIDS (GIPA) Workplace Model is based on the principle that the personal experiences of HIV-positive individuals can help shape attitudes to the disease.
According to a report on the project, a review of the country's HIV/AIDS plan in 1997 found "unacceptably high" levels of stigma and discrimination. Consultations between the government and organisations for people living with HIV/AIDS (PWAs) revealed the need to build the capacity of PWAs to enable them to become involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and management.
The GIPA model trains people openly living with HIV/AIDS in HIV/AIDS information, positive living, dealing with disclosure and HIV/AIDS-related legal issues, Julia Hill, programme manager for GIPA, told PlusNews. These fieldworkers are then placed in private companies and government departments to set up or enrich workplace HIV/AIDS policies.
"We try and provide enough training for them to set up workplace HIV/AIDS policies and to be able to deal with all sorts of technical and difficult questions on HIV/AIDS," she said.
The purpose of the GIPA model was to use the experience of PWAs to give a face to HIV/AIDS and create a supportive work environment for HIV-positive people, the report said.
In 1994, Busi Chamane was fired from her job for being HIV-positive. "I did nothing, I was too scared. In fact my boss threatened to tell everybody if I took him to court [for unfair dismissal]," she told PlusNews.
"At the time, my baby was three or four months old, she had tested HIV-positive at birth and I was too weak. I lay in bed, sick, and I couldn't even hold her or do anything for her. Nobody was caring for her. Then one day, after seeing how unfair it would be to die and leave my three kids with all the stigma of HIV/AIDS, I decided I am going to live."
Busi joined the GIPA programme as a fieldworker and worked for a platinum mining company for more than two years, educating employees and providing counselling services for HIV-positive employees. She also created an AIDS awareness project for sex workers.
She is now employed by the Department of Minerals and Energy as an HIV/AIDS Co-ordinator. Initial reactions to her arrival were mixed. "When they heard I was positive, people were scared to come into my office and they treated AIDS as something which was removed from them. They had no information, they didn't know much. But now I have so much traffic in my office, because people are more aware."
Since she arrived, 25 employees from the department had come forward to disclose their status. Busi warned, however, that employers could not expect their workers to disclose their status without creating a supportive work environment. The Department of Minerals and Energy had donated US$3,000 for the creation of an HIV/AIDS wellness programme. The initiative provides vitamin supplements for HIV-positive employees.
"By giving them this kind of support, more people will be open enough to disclose," said Busi.
Despite being a small project, GIPA has made enough of an impact for it to be expanded. The fieldworkers have become strong advocates at work and in their communities. Their own empowerment has enabled them to address stigma and discrimination more effectively, Hill said.
Newspaper columnist Lucky Mazibuko is one of the most "high-profile" of the GIPA fieldworkers. He writes a regular column on living with HIV/AIDS in a national newspaper and appeared in a television series documenting the lives of PWAs.
"GIPA has brought me many benefits ... but there's a danger of glamorising HIV infection, creating a celebrity role model, and forgetting about difficulties," he said in the report.
Hill said: "By integrating GIPA principles in organisations, all these policies are made credible and authentic because they are being lived, they aren't just forgotten papers in dusty folders."
[This item is delivered to the English Service of the UN's IRIN Humanitarian Information Unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.]
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