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Combating HIV/AIDS in Africa: Worksite Education and Testing

By admin

In this cross-post from Huffington Post, Bernard Pollack, who is taking a leave of absence from the AFL-CIO to travel through Africa, and Danielle Nierenberg describe how the Solidarity Center in South Africa is training and educating workers on HIV/AIDS protection.

Surrounded by neatly trimmed bushes and flower beds, Johnson Matthey Catalysts in Germiston, South Africa, just outside of Johannesburg, looks more like a botanical garden than a factory. But every day nearly 600 workers pass through its doors to their jobs on an assembly line making catalytic converters that are inserted in cars to reduce pollution, complying with South Africa 's auto environmental emissions standards.

As we arrived, Percy Nhlapo, a trainer with the Solidarity Center, an AFL-CIO affiliated non-profit organization that assists workers around the world who are struggling to build democratic and independent trade unions, was leading a discussion with a group of 10 workers, correcting misconceptions about contracting the HIV virus and urging participants to get tested. The Solidarity Center is working in partnership with the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (NUMSA), an industrial affiliate of the country's largest union Federation COSATU, to train and provide free HIV/AIDS testing and counseling to several thousand manufacturing workers a year. Said Percy:

HIV/AIDS affects everyone. Educating workers is the first step in helping them prevent further infection, getting tested is the second.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 11, 2010 (boomark / email).