LifeShield Workplace Programme

GSMF begins by conducting a needs assessment of the workplace, which serves as a reference tool to design and develop programmes and behaviour change communications (BCC) material, hand-tailored to the peculiar needs of the organisation. A steering committee made up of representatives from GSMF and the organisation being addressed is formed to manage all the activities of the programme. The organisation is given an HIV/AIDS office pack and manager’s toolkit, which includes car bumper stickers, posters, brochures, leaflets, a notice board, and clock-in and log-on messages related to HIV/AIDS.

Peer counsellors, selected from all levels of staff, undergo training for two days. Training topics include physiology and anatomy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), HIV/AIDS, fertility management, condoms, peer education and communication skills. Peer counsellors are equipped with a toolkit containing a training manual, STI cue cards, HIV/AIDS cue cards and planners, condoms for condom use demonstrations, and a peer counsellor’s outfit.

After training is completed, LifeShield is formally launched in the workplace and peer counsellors are publicly presented to the organisation to begin peer counselling. They are responsible for continuing to build awareness about the threat of HIV/AIDS, and for merchandising the organisation. They also organise condom promotion and sales in the workplace clinics and reception offices. Voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and STI referrals are also made available to staff, which GSMF claims is of great assistance, as people do not generally seek medical aid in these areas.

GSMF says it uses advocacy methods that cut across all managerial and union levels to create keen awareness and bring about change through the introduction, distribution, and promotion of behaviour change techniques and tools throughout the workplace. These sessions are held with management at all levels and with union leaders to create an all-inclusive atmosphere in preparing the entire workforce to accept, support, own, and commit to the programme.

One strategy, then, involves connecting with employers, appealing to their commercial interests and sense of corporate responsibility to mobilise action on the part of their employees. For instance, employers are helped to understand that they can protect their human resource investments if they take action in the workplace to fight the epidemic. Organisers help employers manage the incidence of HIV/AIDS in their businesses by encouraging them to set in place HIV/AIDS-related policies and strategies to prevent crisis situations.

To address employees, the programme conducts preventive education - drawing on the involvement of the trained peer counsellors - in the form of workshops, training, and merchandising of worksites with HIV/AIDS preventive products to stir up awareness and effect change. The programme organisers say: “Key to this approach is the simultaneous synergistic promotion of family planning methods.”

Through the workplace initiative, Lifeshield also reaches into the surrounding community of the organisation being addressed - the idea is that they impact each other. Community activities include film shows, walks, durbars and fun fairs and a variety of entertainment-educational activities such as quizzes, drama and theme days, which the families of both employers and employees attend.

HIV/AIDS, Health, Family Planning.

Evaluation has been central to LifeShield; the programme began with a baseline survey, after which continuous assessment channels were set in place. On a monthly basis, peer counsellors filled out report sheets on their activities. Condom sales were tracked, and follow-up surveys were conducted after one year of implementation. Among the findings: “LifeShield gained significant momentum since it began in 2001. So far, 11 organisations from six regions in Ghana have been enrolled in the programme. Participating companies include financial institutions, factories and plantations. The success of LifeShield is anchored in GSMF’s tireless dedication to multi-level advocacy, participatory education and interaction with the workplace, through peer educators. As employers continue to benefit from the programme, corporate doors are readily opening up to GSMF’s intervention, which is also an opportunity to increase the number of non-traditional outlets for condom sales. One notable organisation created a new full time position for a HIV/AIDS manager, assigned exclusively to the task of coordinating and managing HIV/AIDS related issues within the organization. Another company expressed the wish to enclose HIV/AIDS educational material in all their billing statements to clients. And recently, there has been a significant increase in calls from employers requesting that LifeShield be launched at their workplaces.”