Ekurhuleni - The HIV and AIDS support group initiated by the Ekurhuleni Municipality is helping to improve the wellness of employees and encourage communities to disclose their status in order to get help.
Explaining the role of the support group during the Ekurhuleni HIV and AIDS Indaba on Tuesday, representative from the municipality's employee wellness unit, Nonkululeko Tyilana said the group aimed to empower employees working for the municipality.
"We want to empower them psychologically and physically so that they would be able to go out and plough back to their own communities and encourage other people to come out and disclose their HIV status in order to get help," said Ms Tyilana.
The support group gives employees an opportunity to open up and share their experiences and challenges they are facing as some of them are still struggling to come out due to the stigma attached with the disease.
"We want them to come out and get help but one of the challenges we are facing is to get men tested as most of them are reluctant to join the group," she said.
The support group, Ms Tyilana said, did not only address HIV and AIDS but other issues including domestic violence and financial programmes.
Her colleague Andre Swanepoel emphasised said through the employee assistance programme, which includes the support group, the municipality is able to help its employees deal with various diseases including stress, anxiety, alcohol and substance abuse.
"People come to us suffering from stress before they get to the point where we realise what is happening, if we cure these people, we would be able to continue with our work of bringing service to the people," Mr Swanepoel said.
Themed "Together we can do more in the fight against HIV and AIDS" the annual indaba examined its successes and challenges in the implementation of the National Strategic Plan (NSP) on HIV and AIDS.
NSP, which is a five year plan to help South Africa deal with HIV and AIDS, aims to cut the number of new infections by half in 2011 and ensure that at least eight out of 10 people living with the virus have access to services that will help them to live longer and healthier lives.
In his State of the Nation Address last week, President Jacob Zuma said government had set a target of having 80 percent of HIV positive people in the country on antiretroviral treatment by 2011 and also aimed to reduce the rate of new HIV infections by 50 percent by 2011.
He said government had to work together with stakeholders to improve the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan for the Treatment, Management and Care of HIV and AIDS which aims to reduce the rate of new HIV infections by 50 percent by the year 2011.
