Video on AIDS in the workplace released
In December 2005, Belize’s Cabinet approved the National Policy on HIV/AIDS and the National Policy on HIV/AIDS in the World of Work. Since then, work has commenced on reviewing the current legislation to bring them in line with the policies and give their much needed teeth of enforcement. But while that process is going through its lengthy motions, infected persons continue to be stigmatized and discriminated against not only in their homes but on the job, which is where the Ministry of Labour comes in. News Five’s Kendra Griffith reports.
Kendra Griffith, Reporting
This morning the Ministry of Labour launched its latest tool in championing the need for HIV policies in the workplace… it’s a video entitled Creating Change.
Hertha Gentle Barber, Senior Labour Officer
“The video is an ILO initiative and the plan is that we are going to be using it when we do training because, like I had mentioned, everything we do is based on behaviour change communication and so we are going to be using it as a behaviour change communication tool. It highlights the efforts that companies have been making across the world and it highlights efforts in Benin, Belize, Indonesia and Swaziland. It is going to be looking at what companies have been doing for their staff, what they have been doing as a company on a whole.”
“The group of people most affected by HIV and AIDS is the group between fifteen and forty-nine that is the people within the most reproductive and productive years. So while I can’t say company X has so many people positive, I can say there is a high possibility that every workplace in this country has somebody in there who is positive or who may become positive.”
With an employed labour force of over a hundred thousand persons, some of those infected persons are working for businesses that are members of the Belize Chamber of Commerce.
Amparo Masson, President, Belize Chamber of Commerce
“We have to be really, really concerned, especially when we look at the statistics and we know that the incidents of infections are increasing. I believe that we have a responsibility to work with the National AIDS Commission in terms of looking at the national plan and to see how we can get businesses to involved to really try and minimize the incidence of infections. The business community is pressed with a lot of economic issues and so forth, but it’s something that we do recognize the importance of it and it’s something that we have to accelerate the process with which we try to get businesses involved.”
Since the Ministry of Labour began the program in 2003, approximately twenty-five hundred employees have been given protection through the implementation of workplace policies. This morning, the Cahal Pech Resort joined the ranks of those with workplace policies by officially signing their document. Senior Labour Officer Hertha Gentle, says while the program has been successful, they still struggle with getting businesses to sign on.
Hertha Gentle Barber
“We’ve recently had one company who has said to us that they do not feel that it is necessary in their workplace. To those companies, I would like to say that it is always going to be necessary. HIV might itself not be at your workplace, but these people come from communities, they have families, they have friends and so it is going to impact us at some level even if not work.”
The Ministry of Labour also recognized several businesses and employees for their successful implementation of workplace programs. Among the awardees were Alice Bowman of the Pelican Beach Resort, one of the first resorts to sign a policy, the Belize and Belmopan city council and four Cayo resorts who signed policies last month.
But it was Citrus Products of Belize Limited which was the best in show, taking home three awards for outstanding company, outstanding focal point person, Dwight Montero, and for their peer educators.
Hertha Gentle Barber
“They stood out because they were not afraid from the very beginning, they were never afraid. They had the drive, they shared with other companies who were interested and the support within C.P.B.L. came from the very top, right from Mr. Canton right down to the man at the bottom.”
Albourn Roches, a machinist mechanic, is one of the C.P.B.L.’s ten peer educators.
Albourn Roches, Peer Educator, C.P.B.L.
“I got involved in it simply because I think there is a need to be educated about it so that I can tell my family, my friends and also my co-workers about getting HIV does not mean the end of the world. We go around, we have our area that we have condom distribution area. From time to time we would pull over the employees of C.P.B.L. and educate them about HIV and AIDS.”
Hertha Gentle
“The work continues, I hoping that the work becomes more abundant for us after today because next month we have twenty-three new companies that we are working with and they are various sizes, so the work definitely continues.”
Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.
The video was created for SHARE, Strategic HIV/AIDS Response in Enterprises, an ILO education programme which reaches six hundred and fifty businesses in twenty-four countries.
