An additional 25 SMEs in Buffalo City are set to benefit from Siyakhana's HIV and AIDS VCT and treatment for staff and dependants.
This innovative project which is run under the auspices of the Siyakhana Health Trust, a non-profit organisation jointly founded by Mercedes-Benz South Africa, the Border-Kei Chamber of Business and a German development agency DEG (Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH) assists companies address the pandemic through comprehensive primary health care for their employees and dependants which includes access to quality HIV counselling and testing and HIV and AIDS treatment and support.
With the resounding success of its two year pilot phase which ended late last year and saw 17 companies access Siyakhana’s services, the project achieved benchmark status at the 16th World Congress on HIV and AIDs in Toronto in 2006 and featured as a case study in several forums overseas including a Global Business Coalition Special Conference on HIV and AIDS in Russia in October 2007. It has also received accolades for its holistic and partnership approach with partnerships spanning business, local and provincial government, national and international donors.
In the two years since its operation Siyakhana Project has offered Voluntary Counselling and Testing to 4 717 employees of whom 3 129 have been tested and 272 tested positive.
In amply demonstrating its innovativeness in the ongoing challenge to address HIV and AIDS, the project has captured local, national and international attention and has garnered healthy funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) to allow it to continue its good work.
Initially housed at the Border-Kei Chamber of Business’ offices in Southernwood, the Siyakhana Project now has its own premises also in St George’s Road.
“We invite SMEs with 50 to 200 employees to make contact with us so that we can assist them with their response to addressing HIV and AIDS in their workplaces. Typically smaller companies have neither the financial nor human resources to run workplace programmes and the Siyakhana Project offers an affordable company wide programme,” Siyakhana Project Manager Dr Simeon Odugwu said.
By having its own premises the project hopes to improve access to spouses and dependants to its services.
“We are finding that spouses and children are not accessing the project in the way we envisaged and there are a number of complex factors that account for this, not least of all poor communication patterns, denial and stigma,” Dr Odugwu said.
The Siyakhana project will also intensify raising awareness of the interrelationship between tuberculosis and risks of contracting HIV into its VCT programme.
“Amathole District has been identified as a crisis area when it comes to incidence of multiple drug resistant (MDR) and extreme drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis. People with compromised immune systems are far more likely to become HIV positive if exposed to the virus,” he said.