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INTRODUCTION
The Ambatovy Project is a very big mining project in Madagascar with a mine site
close to the city of Moramanga, a 220 km pipeline bringing the ores to the
treatment plant (Plant Site) near Toamasina (see frame) and a construction or an
extension of auxiliary infrastructures such as port facilities, new roads and railroad
tracks.
The Project lifespan is estimated to be 30 years and manpower during the current
construction phase is about 10, 000 people, 15% of which are expatriates
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.
As a part of its social commitments, the Project accepts to sensitize all of its
employees to HIV AIDS and STDs.
For this purpose, the Project Management established and distributed the
company’s HIV AIDS internal policy to the staff, whose educational programs aim at
warning and reducing transmission of this infection.
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Indeed, even though HIV prevalence among the general adult population in
Madagascar is below 1%, there are many socio-cultural and economic factors that
facilitate spreading of STDs/HIV. In fact, very popular with tourists and having a port,
the city of Toamasina shelters a big community of sex workers; the city of
Moramanga is also a meeting point of truck drivers and carriers, often considered as
a high risk group. Finally, the Project employees, both Malagasy and expatriates, can
be classified as mobile people working far from home
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, especially during this
construction phase. This situation deserves particular actions on prevention of HIV
AIDS spreading.
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AIDS can touch any categories of people. In developing countries, it strikes and will
continue to strike the most economically and socially active people because of their
age, in other words, the working people.
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To fulfill its commitments, an official launching of the HIV/AIDS prevention campaign
was held at the Ambatovy Project Plant Site. The Plant Site is a complex environment
with 20 subcontractors companies (S/C) of more than 6, 000 employees, whose
Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) education is ensured by HSE Managers and
HSE Supervisors. The strategy used to reach the employees was to use the HSE
supervisors in their regular Toolbox (footline toolbox) with their respective teams
and transmit HIV/AIDS prevention messages.
For this, the subcontractor companies already received a training manual
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and
materials from the Project to train their HSE to conduct HIV/AIDS sensitization of
their teams; many HSE people also received direct training from the Population
Services International/M to run HIV prevention sensitization sessions. Other
companies also have peer educators among their employees.
The expected result of the campaign is for all employees to receive a clear
understanding of the hazards of HIV/AIDS and STDs, and for Companies to regularly
report their prevention activities. The company that showed the most commitment
to employees’ sensitization activities was going to receive a gratitude distinction.
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