Capital

Partnership is essential

By Sister Kidist, Industrial Health and Safety Service Head, Emergency Relief Transport

Emergency Relief Transport is a government enterprise established ten years ago, which provides transportation services to those stricken by accidents, disaster and poverty. We carry goods and services for the government and NGOs and we also provide transport services for private companies and individuals together with maintenance services. The company is also looking at moving into transit activities.
The company has 300 employees: 109 male heavy truck drivers; two female and 80 male mechanics; and 33 female and 76 male office workers. They are all permanent staff and live around Addis Ababa. Our Akaki Kality site is the head office with other sites in Adama, Dire Dawa, Woreta and Kombolche.
I have worked at Emergency Relief Transport for four years and I am the Industrial Health and Safety Service Head with responsibility for running the clinic and workplace safety. We identified the problem of HIV/AIDS within the company about three years ago when six employees died in six months. I was upset by the needless deaths of our employees so we initiated a program to tackle the problem of HIV and AIDS in our workplace.
Partnerships
Forming partnerships with relevant and useful partners was one of the most important ways of achieving our HIV/AIDS goals. No business can do everything by itself so networking and forming partnerships is integral to achieving success.
We identified partners to work with and we joined ISAPSO who are a local NGO working with truck drivers and sex workers. We also networked and partnered with among others, Crown Cork and Can Share Company, the Ethiopian Business Coalition Against HIV/AIDS (EBCA), AMREF, APT Associates, the Labor Office, CETU and Addis Ababa HAPCO. Addis Ababa HAPCO, provided me with counseling training and in turn, I counsel the truck drivers. CETU provided free referral cards for Voluntary Counseling and Testing. Networking with Crown Cork and Can Share Company was vital for experience-sharing and looking at best practice, and EBCA has provided us with a number of different trainings such as awareness raising, condom promotion and prevention. We also attended the EBCA Business and HIV/AIDS Exhibition where we shared our experiences and best practice with other businesses. EBCA’s experience-sharing workshops and events are what we find most useful. It is good to exchange ideas and learning with other businesses.
The HIV/AIDS Committee
Our HIV/AIDS committee, which was set up three years ago, consists of representation from the following groups: female employees, the Edir, the trade union and from across all the different employment sectors of the company. Ato Dereje Fikadu, the Administrative and Manpower Department Head, is the HIV/AIDS Committee Chairman and the General Manager has supervisory powers.
The HIV/AIDS Committee has undertaken a number of activities, not least the preparation of an HIV/AIDS Policy which is currently with the management for final approval. The Policy will then be sent to EBCA for comment and for their assistance in the awareness-raising of its points and the distribution to each employee within Emergency Relief Transport.
The HIV/AIDS Committee is also currently focusing on administering the Solidarity Fund to which all employees contribute 0.75 per cent of their salary each month. There was initially some hesitation from the employees about the Solidarity Fund but there were awareness-raising sessions including one session where an HIV positive employee disclosed himself to his colleagues and explained that he had wanted to die when he found out that he was HIV positive. The employees realized that even though their colleague was HIV positive, there was no need for him to die, he was not a lost cause and they agreed to contribute to the Solidarity Fund to be used for care and support for HIV positive colleagues. Every month about 2300 ETB is collected through the Solidarity Fund and the committee provides 200ETB every three months for each HIV positive employee. The money is provided at three-month intervals to avoid outright dependence on the committee. The excess collected is kept for when an employee is critically ill and needs additional financial resources.
The HIV/AIDS Committee also holds frequent meetings, peer education sessions and uses mini-media to raise awareness of the disease. We hold large-scale events about three or four times a year and we involve various partners such as EBCA, Tesfago, Mekdim Ethiopia and DKT. We also make condoms, supplied by CETU, AMREF and ISAPSO, freely available in the company toilets.
Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT)
I provide HIV/AIDS pre-test counseling to employees and then we operate a referral system to the family clinic as we encourage all employees to be tested with their family. The employees then have the option to bring the results back to me and undergo more counseling, whether the result is positive or negative. If the result is positive, we will refer the employee to their local clinic to gain access to Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) if needed.
177 of our employees have been tested – 121 in this last year alone. Our HIV/AIDS committee also organizes mobile VCT twice a year for employees.
There are currently 17 employees living with HIV/AIDS. Any opportunistic infections that they might fall ill from are treated at the company clinic and if they have to be treated in a hospital, the company covers the majority of the costs. If the employee goes to a government hospital, 90 per cent of the costs are covered whereas if an employee goes to a private hospital, 60 per cent of the costs are covered.
In addition, if an employee falls ill and is not able to carry out his or her current work, the company allows that employee to transfer to light work with the same salary, until they are well enough to transfer back to the heavy work.
We see VCT as one of the most important elements in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS which is why our goal when we participated in EBCA’s Rapid Results Initiative (to achieve HIV/AIDS mainstreaming results within 100 days) was to provide VCT services for 42 of our employees. In fact, we achieved provided VCT services for 55 of our employees within 100 days.
The difference
The main difference to our company, now that we have been working on HIV/AIDS activities for the past three years, is that our employees are no longer dying. Only two employees have died of HIV related illnesses in the past three years. When an employee falls ill, everyone rallies around that colleague to help them, lead by the committee. In one case fellow employees donated blood at the hospital to assist their colleague.
Having to replace employees because they have died of AIDS related illnesses is no longer one of the main issues for our company. There is also now very little stigma in the company towards HIV positive employees.
What next?
The next step for the HIV/AIDS Committee is to focus on all the Emergency Relief Transport sites outside of Addis Ababa. We are looking at completing our training of all truck drivers, undertaking more peer education and providing mobile VCT services. Our aim is to ensure all our employees undergo VCT. If our employees know their status, it is easier for them to deal with the disease and for the company to provide care and support, or to prevent themselves from becoming HIV positive.