Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
BBC News - Thursday, 20 November, 2003
Thoko Moyo, BBC Africa Live!
When I worked for an international development agency operating in South Africa, I saw just how important a role an organised workplace can play in creating awareness and supporting those affected by the virus.
The country has one of the highest numbers of HIV-positive people and ignorance and stigma surrounding the disease persists.
Many questions raced through the minds of my colleagues and I when thinking about this issue: Would we be comfortable enough to tell anyone at work? Would they be able to cope working with me if I had the virus and they knew about it, or would I be treated differently and judged because of my status?
Rights
What were my rights as a member of staff? Would the company support me and my family both financially and emotionally?
Together with our headquarters in Washington we developed an in-house policy on HIV/ Aids, which dealt with issues such as the elimination of discrimination and stigma associated with HIV status or perceived status and encouraging staff to have voluntary testing.
We developed a policy of laying down a standard of behaviour for all employees, whether infected or not and contributing to the wider efforts to stop the spread of the virus through prevention programmes.
The policy provided the blue print of how matters relating to HIV/Aids were handled in the office.
At an operational level an Aids committee was formed - of which I was a member - to make sure that the office became HIV/Aids friendly.
Sharing experiences
We had a small budget to procure materials to support our objectives, but our work mainly involved a lot of talking and sharing of experiences.
For instance we organized 'brown bag' lunches every month with an Aids theme - for me the one with the most impact was a meeting with a woman who was HIV positive.
Until that day many people in the office had not knowingly met a person who was HIV positive and her presence - a beautiful radiant woman who spoke positively and lived an active healthy life - shattered all the stereotypes of what a person who is HIV positive looks like.
She could have been anyone of us.
We also ensured that literature on HIV/Aids testing and counselling was readily available, and that condom dispensing machines were placed in all the toilets, including female condoms.
Surprisingly, there was little resistance and embarrassment to such measures.
But our biggest success was to convince our headquarters that HIV/Aids drugs should be discreetly and confidentially provided free to the staff.
I chaired the HIV/Aids committee for half a year, and in that time, despite what I think was a very well informed office, I never knew of anyone who actually took up counselling or told me that they had taken an Aids test.
But I certainly know that my own attitude towards the disease and people living with HIV changed for the better.
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