| Wits Business School |
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Workplace HIV/AIDS peer education is a core element of corporate South Africa’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Dr David Dickson has researched this area and published a paper: ‘AIDS, order and ‘best practice’ in the South African workplace: managers, peer educators, traditional healers and folk theories’. Dr Dickson is senior lecturer in industrial relations at the Wits Business School. He teaches a course on ‘HIV/AIDS in the Workplace’ for MBA students and has supervised several post-graduate research projects on HIV/AIDS in the workplace. He has published a number of reports and academic articles on HIV/AIDS in the workplace and was co-chair of the 2004 Wits HIV/AIDS in the Workplace Research Symposium This report provides a benchmark of workplace HIV/AIDS peer educators in South Africa and addresses a number of critical issues for workplace-based peer education. The research was conducted in five large South African companies with a total workforce of over 120 000 permanent and non-permanent employees. The companies have approximately 1 780 active peer educators (a ratio of one peer educator to 69 employees). The research consisted of interviews with 29 ‘key players’ involved in the companies’ HIV/AIDS programmes; a questionnaire sent out to all peer educators of which 614 were returned; interviews with 75 peer educators across the country; and, participatory observation. This constitutes the most extensive research project into workplace HIV/AIDS peer educators of its kind in South Africa or globally. The report documents the profile of peer educators, noting the over-representation of women, and African women in particular, within the ranks of peer educators when compared with the overall profile of the companies’ workforce. Attention is also drawn to the symbolically important dearth of peer educators from the ranks of top and senior management. – Southern African Regional Poverty Network. Click here to go to the review. To download the report, click here . |