Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - December 4, 2005
Henriette Geldenhuys

Mokoena was one of the first people to get help after the group launched its Sasol HIV/Aids Response Programme (Sharp) in May 2003.

Since then, most of Sasol's 24000 employees in South Africa have attended the company's compulsory HIV/Aids education sessions. More than 17000 employees have undergone voluntary testing.

Mokoena, a maintenance worker in Sasolburg, was one of 1213 employees who tested positive.

Before joining the Sharp programme in October 2003, he looked like a living corpse and was often absent from work. When he got his test results, he thought he would die immediately: "I wanted to leave the company and take my pension money with me."

Then he was told he could get antiretroviral drugs, provided by Sasol.

"I was very thin when I started the treatment. But then I started to get fat. At the moment, there's not even one day when I'm lying at home," said Mokoena.

He started addressing workers at awareness meetings, laying his pills on the table and explaining how to take them.

"Before that, many believed that taking traditional medicines would make them healthy. But, since then, they've seen that antiretrovirals will help them," he said.

"If they see, they don't forget and they will believe," said Dr Obed Mphofu, who treats many of Sasol's HIV-positive workers in Secunda.

"Since we've started using antiretroviral treatment, the death rate has gone down and a lot of people get up and go back to work," the doctor said.

Sasol embarked on the programme when previous efforts to address Aids proved too fragmented, said the co-ordinator in Secunda, Hayley Holtzhausen.

In the past, employees were invited to attend Aids workshops, but only a few pitched up. So Sasol stopped work for the four-hour long workshop and made it compulsory to attend. Managers and union leaders led by example and were tested first.

HIV-positive employees who could not get antiretrovirals through medical aid, such as Mokoena, were provided with free treatment by the company. Pre- and post-test counselling are also provided.

Another spin-off from the programme was that three unions which were previously divided came together to fight the common enemy.

They are the National Union of Mineworkers, the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers' Union, and Solidarity.

"The Sharp programme pulled us together as a workforce," said Leon Bruwer of Solidarity.

The union leaders said misconceptions had ruled before they went on a three-month-training course to prepare for the roll-out of the Sharp programme.

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