By Nangamso Mabindla
2 November 2005

FOLLOWING the success of its groundbreaking study into the prevalence of HIV and Aids among its 5 000 employees, Buffalo City Municipality is now ready for phase two of its strategy.

In this leg of the programme, the focus is on wellness. The City will put in place a comprehensive workplace programme to deal with HIV/Aids issues among its staff.

Cherrie Zuccarani, from the Epicentre Aids Risk Management in Johannesburg, pointed out that the municipality would be keeping in line with the theme of World Aids Day, "Keeping the promise", in the second phase.

When it undertook the prevalence study last year, the municipality had promised employees it would continue with the strategy after the study was completed, she said.

"When we conducted the study last year we promised employees that we would return and proceed with phase two, which would deal with wellness in the workplace."

The aim was to put HIV and Aids issues in Buffalo City in the spotlight.

HIV and Aids were cross-cutting issues that needed to be dealt with by all the municipality's directorates. "It is not a only a health or human resources issue; all the directorates need to take ownership and ensure that their employees are healthy and continue delivering services to the people," Zuccarani said.

However, for the second phase to be a success the City's top management needed to participate in the wellness programme.

"We are going to conduct peer education training, the training of managers and of union leaders. After their training they will be able to integrate HIV and Aids into their jobs.

"That means that they will be thinking about HIV and Aids issues when they draft their policies and implementation plans," Zuccarani added.

This would help the City when it needed to update its policy on HIV and Aids.

Talking about the effect the second phase would have on communities, Zuccarani said citizens would have more confidence in the municipality if its management treated HIV and Aids issues seriously.

"Managers will train employees on how to deal with HIV and Aids challenges in the workplace, and on the importance of continued smooth service delivery, despite facing [these] challenges.

"However, it is also noteworthy that these employees will go back to their communities and educate people about the disease," she said.