KHBC'S PEER EDUCATION PROGRAM:
THE BUSINESS END OF HIV/AIDS PREVENTION IN KENYA
THE BUSINESS END OF HIV/AIDS PREVENTION IN KENYA
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What is peer education? Out of a population of 33.4 million, roughly 80 000 Kenyans die every year from AIDS-related diseases. Most of them are under 30 years old. With so many businesses affected by such widespread loss of young employees, the workplace is a key place for raising awareness of the disease and promoting prevention. Peer educators are employees who volunteer to act as persuasive role models, to "educate" their peers about STIs, HIV and AIDS through one-on-one discussions or in small groups, and to motivate at-risk colleagues to change their risky behaviors. "I talk about HIV/AIDS to my peers as often as possible, even in odd places like the washroom!" laughs Anne W. Kamau, one of the twenty three peer educators at CIC. Trained by the Kenya HIV/AIDS Private Sector Business Council (KHBC - see box), she feels that "the greatest benefit of the KHBC training was to overcome my fear of HIV/AIDS. Breaking this taboo is a big step forward. The training changed my mindset on the disease and on the people living with HIV." What is behind this idea of training peer educators in companies?  Promoted by the Kenya HIV/AIDS Private Sector Business Council, it is an important way for businesses to implement their HIV/AIDS workplace policy. Thanks to a US$17,000 grant from the Merck Company Foundation, KHBC has developed some basic training materials to support peer educators within twenty of its member companies. "These posters and brochures have been developed in-house and we will give them to the peer educators we trained last December" explains Francis Njangiru, Program Manager of KHBC. The three-day training covers the various aspects of the disease, how to take care of HIV patients, nutrition and story-telling, to get prevention and support messages across. Booklets are distributed which cover topics such as peer education, communication skills, HIV/AIDS basic facts, principles/modes of counseling, behavior change communication, facts on voluntary counseling and testing and on condom use, the role of nutrition in managing HIV/AIDS, positive living and home-based care.The Merck grant is to help the KHBC sensitize senior management and staff of twenty small and medium companies to the concept of a global HIV/AIDS workplace program, to prevent new HIV infections, to supply prevention and training materials and to train peer educators.
The Co-operative Insurance Company of Kenya: A blueprint for positive living CIC is one of the twenty companies benefiting from KHBC’s peer educator trainings. Created in 1978, CIC started an HIV/AIDS program in 2005 for its 125 regular employees and its 25 agents selling life insurance across the country. By the end of 2006, twenty three peer educators -one for every five people working in the company- had been trained by the KHBC.  "Becoming a peer educator was something natural for me", says Denis Miano Wang’ombe, a 23-year-old working in the Life Department. "The biggest proportion of people infected is in my age group. I strongly feel that I can empower people of my age and together we can make the difference" he enthuses. "What I like best in the training is that we are taught how to communicate on HIV/AIDS, and how to take care of the infected people and help them live positively. I have been able to approach some of my colleagues at work, although time and availability are really the most challenging obstacles I face. During lunch, people often want to speak about light subjects and after work, everyone rushes home... And of course I have my own work to do during working hours!"CIC also provides quality group medical insurance cover for its employees. Benefits include HIV-related hospitalization and 50% of the total cover for chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes, etc. CIC does not ask staff to contribute any premium.  Concern for people and productivity reflect CIC’s core values, says Amina Jaberney, CIC’s Human Resources Manager: "The HIV policy that we launched in August 2006 has helped us align our Corporate Policy with our HIV/AIDS Policy. Sometimes goodwill is not enough and you must seek other people's expertise. We got help from the KHBC for implementing our HIV/AIDS Workplace program and training our peer educators."Today CIC has an HIV taskforce which includes one nominee from each department and has a mix of sexes and age groups. It holds monthly meetings on HIV/AIDS and has developed an action plan for 2007, including awareness campaigns for staff and dependents. What are CIC’s next steps? They are planning lectures for staff and their dependents at the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi, their referral hospital. They will also be organizing voluntary HIV testing. Another Voluntary Counseling and Testing Day should take place this year. CIC also hopes to train peer educators in its twelve branches across Kenya and to share best practice with the insurance sector in a second stage. According to Management, the corporation has a big clientele. If CIC manages to reach these companies, it will do good to the corporation and to the country in general. Above all, CIC wants to show other insurance companies, and the private sector as a whole, that HIV/AIDS can be fought in the workplace, and that it makes sense to treat and insure people living with HIV/AIDS in terms of human capital and cost for the company, allowing them to remain productive and to live positively. For more information on the Kenya HIV/AIDS Business Council, visit their website: www.kenyabusinesscouncil.org or send an e-mail to: info@kenyahivbusinesscouncil.org Interviews and article by Sophie d'Aurelle de Paladines. Photos and video by Frederique Remy Editor: Fiona Hall | |||||||||||||||||||
KHBC was created in 2000 with eight private companies as members (including Unilever, General Motors and the Kenya Breweries), after the President of the Republic of Kenya declared HIV/AIDS a "national disaster". This non-profit making organization mobilizes the private sector to control and mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS in the workplace and at the community level. It now has 150 members, including large public companies such as National Social Security Fund and the Kenya Port Authorities Ltd. The prominent role it plays in HIV/AIDS advocacy and policy making at the national level has led the National AIDS Control Council to consider KHBC as "the" representative of the private sector.
More than just a coalition of enterprises, KHBC responds to HIV needs on behalf of companies (especially small and medium sized ones) that want to implement an HIV/AIDS policy and workplace program but do not have the resources to do so. "We prepare the HIV/AIDS policy and workplace programs for their directors and human resources managers, we sensitize their staff and encourage the employees to be tested, lend videos and books, give away posters and brochures, and finally supply condoms received from the government, while companies carry on doing their own business as usual" explains Francis Njangiru.
