Mrs. Mantiti Khabo, Teba Development’s regional coordinator will be participating in the XVI International AIDS Conference, 13^th to 18^th August 2006, in Toronto. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Time to Deliver’. The conference will focus on the urgency of bringing effective HIV prevention and treatment strategies to communities of the world.

 

Khabo will be sharing her experiences in facilitating private sector response to HIV and AIDS with specific focus on availability and effectiveness of HIV/AIDS workplace policies and prevention programme. The Teba Development’s project was initiated in 2002, in partnership with the Private Sector Coalition Against HIV and AIDS (PSCAAL) to scale up private sector response to HIV and AIDS in Lesotho.

 

The Development conducted a baseline survey in 2002 in 17 companies (15% of all private sector companies) in Lesotho to identify HIV/AIDS policies and programmes in place and to assess knowledge, attitudes and practises related to HIV and AIDS amongst the workforce. A few companies (2%) reported having HIV and AIDS workplace programmes, mostly big companies as compared to SMMEs. Whilst the majority of the companies have information, as few as 35% are disseminating this information. In the baseline, the organisation also discovered that as low as five percent employees were aware of their companies HIV/AIDS programmes.

 

“As much as information is available within the senior management staff of most companies, we believe that the key to address this issue is by implementing vigorous awareness campaigns focusing mainly to the low level employees.  Employee involvement in policy and programme design is crucial. We have to provide support to companies, especially SMMEs, with policy formulation and programme design. Adequate budgets should be provided to implement these policies and programmes”, Mantiti Khabo, Teba Development’s Regional Coordinator.

 

Khabo is also a member of the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM), a body coordinating Global Fund’s funded HIV/AIDS work in Lesotho. She will also be part of a pre-conference workshop on prevention of HIV transmission on the 10^th August.

 

“This is the only presentation from Lesotho in the conference and this shows our commitment to the fight against AIDS in the country as Teba Development. We were selected as presenters in a pool of 20 000 applications. We have something to share with the world and learn from other role players”, Khabo.