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The HSE supervisor or the team leader led the session in front of a group of workers. He announced
the topic of the session: in one of the cases, he read a text that highlighted the dangers of STDs and
HIV and the means of protection from them; in two other cases, he spontaneously talked about the
causes of AIDS and the importance of screening; during one of these sessions, the HSE supervisor
used advice cards. The HSE supervisor also sparked off questions and answers from the workers.
We noted a few reactions of the workers:
-
The discussion was lively, in which workers still showed their lack of understanding on the
context of fight against AIDS and HIV positive stages
-
In one case, the workers only listened and did not ask any questions
-
In another case, the workers expressed their need for condoms and the fact that they do not
know where to screen for HIV.
Gathering of Companies’ Monthly Reports
The companies started to have a simple and uniform report template to report their HIV prevention
activities. In November 2009, 12 out of 20 companies submitted their reports to us (12/20).
The other 8 did not send any reports despite several requests. Either they did not carry out any HIV
prevention activities, or they did but did not think that the report is important.
We analyzed the 12 November reports altogether and deducted the following information:
Table 2: Analysis of monthly report contents
Sensitization Topic
HIV/AIDS, STD, transmission causes, prevention means, condoms use, HIV screening, International AIDS
Day, Peer Educators, Inappropriate behaviors of soliciting prostitution
Number of sessions per month
1 to 6
Means used
Brochures, posters, wood penis, condoms, training manual, PowerPoint, Computer, verbal, skit
Number of participants
Per group: from 9 to 300 participants
Allocated Time
7 to 45 minutes on sensitizations, 6 to 12 hours on trainings
Table 2 shows that the companies included various HIV AIDS related topics in their sensitizations. In
addition, half of them integrated topics on regular STDs.
They used the materials the Project provided and took the initiative to use other means of educating
their employees (such as PowerPoint, Skit).
In more than half of the cases, the educational part was on use of condoms.
The participants of one group could be very many; it could go over a hundred. We were not always
able to know the number participants included in the companies’ reports, unless these latter did it
themselves to make sure the participants are not counted two or many times. Thus, the COLAS
Company specified the number of its sensitized employees in November 2009 at 595 people.
The average time allocated to the sessions seemed to be much longer (over 15 minutes) than the
theoretical toolbox time (6mn).
