HIV and AIDS workplace programmes change the lives of thousands

At Volvo Trucks in South Africa, 5.5% of the staff are HIV positive. While this is considerably lower than the figure for the adult population in South Africa as a whole, which is near 20%, the company did not hesitate to implement an HIV and AIDS workplace programme.

Within three months of the rollout of the programme, 93% of Volvo’s employees had undergone voluntary counselling and testing, VCT, to find out their HIV status.

HIV basic training is an integral part of the induction training for all staff, while other courses cover issues such as stigma and discrimination, healthy living, sexually transmitted infections and anti-retroviral treatment. Drivers of Volvo trucks are also targeted through differerent training and information initiatives.

Alfa Laval, another Swedish company with just 38 employees in South Africa, was very conscious about HIV and AIDS and their effects on the workplace, but hesitant to start a company programme due to its size. Instead it joined the Swedish Workplace HIV and AIDS Programme in 2005.

Management was the first to be trained and tested and at the end of September the same year, every single employee had undergone HIV training and VCT.

While the achievements of these companies may seem exceptional, most of the 132 workplaces included in the programme have reached an 80-90% uptake in training and voluntary counselling and testing.

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida, the International Council for Swedish Industry and the Swedish Industrial and Metal workers’ Union are running and co-funding the programme together with the companies.

SWHAP, which also covers Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Tanzania, was launched in South Africa in 2004.