By Nangamso Mabindla
25 October 2006

IN a bid to fight HIV and Aids in the workplace, Buffalo City has launched a peer education programme.

Earlier this year a peer educator from the Epicenter was seconded to the City's special programmes unit to help speed up the City's education programme. Thembeni Mame has trained more than 100 peer educators to teach municipal employees and citizens about ways to deal with the epidemic.

Last week the City opened the programme to its employees and handed out certificates to the peer educators. Speaking about the programme's effectiveness, Mame said that it was going to benefit every citizen in Buffalo City.

"Our peer educators have been trained in a lot of areas and now they are ready to go to their communities and educate people about ways to combat the spread of the virus."

Each of the 100 peer educators would have 20 people to educate. "Since these educators are now aware of ways to combat any of the debilitating sexually transmitted infections and HIV and Aids, they will be in a better position to educate people in their communities. They will start this in November," he added.

However, for this programme to be a success it needed to be embraced by top management. To achieve this, workshops to educate managers about the importance of fighting HIV and Aids in the workplace were held at the beginning of the programme.

Looking at the long-term goals of the programme, Mame said the City would like to incorporate it into its City Development Strategy, it 20-year vision being taken on a roadshow at the end of the month.