The key to real "value adds" in any organisation is the passionate individual. He or she is the driver of any initiative from sales to administration and show particular value in areas of change and caring. An organisation needs only to find the right individual with passion for the project, and the project will be a success.

Harold joined a manufacturing company in 1977 in the warehousing department in Gauteng at a time that coincided with the emergence of the black trade unions movement in South Africa. A little later came the work of the Wiehahn Commission, and in 1981 he became one of the leaders in organising a union in the workplace. His passion and leadership saw him appointed as a shop steward in 1983.

He recalls a number of years of intense conflict between himself and management as the trade union movement fought for the rights of the worker and positioned itself in workplaces around the country. One of Harold`s main antagonists of the time is someone he now considers one of his primary mentors.

Harold first encountered HIV/AIDS on a union mission to Zimbabwe in 1986 and developed an immediate interest in the disease. At the time HIV/AIDS was thought to be a condition that only existed north of the Limpopo. In the ensuing few years Harold followed information on the epidemic and began to ask questions as to what effect HIV/AIDS was going to have on the trade union movement and the communities in South Africa.

In 1991, Harold approached the health unit at the company and requested to attend a course on HIV/AIDS training. This insight and passion led to increased HIV/AIDS awareness in the company workplace years ahead of other companies. The course that was provided was one for social workers and Harold attended it after hours. After first raising the issue in the union in 1992, the union took their first resolution on HIV/AIDS in 1993 and in 1994 created a support group of 24 people consisting of staff from a variety of divisions in the company.

The support group requested training in HIV/AIDS and all 24 staff in the group enrolled on an eight-month training programme. By the end of the programme the group had halved in size to 12 as some had lost interest and a number found that for religious and other reasons they were unable to deal with the course content. As a trained counsellor, in his spare time Harold began a five-year period of voluntary counselling in the communities. He worked shifts at his company and would spend a further eight hours at a local hospital. By 1999 Harold was experiencing burnout from the stresses of his “double life”. He approached the company’s health centre and they believed that he needed a programme of debriefing, counselling and mentoring. He says this process has changed his life and provided him with focus and renewed energy.

Harold currently holds the position of Health Administrator in the medical centre of the company, but much of his time is spent giving talks and counselling. He recently attended the 14th International AIDS Conference in Barcelona – not as a delegate, but rather as a volunteer worker at the Conference assisting with HIV positive delegates.

The qualities of a good peer educator are “respect for others, caring, showing commitment from the heart and knowing your audience”, says Harold. He believes a peer educator should not be too critical or aim to stop people from what they do, but should rather offer an alternative way to behave. “It takes skill to impart information to the youth and a different approach when talking with the elderly”, he says. The work of a peer educator is slow, focused and methodical because the real changes required to manage HIV/AIDS are behavioural and changing behaviours take time.