HIV/AIDS Awareness

UNAIDS and the World Health Organization estimate that there are around 33 million people living with HIV worldwide. Every year, almost 2.6 million new infections occur and 1.8 million people die from AIDS-related deaths worldwide. Some of our employees and their families are affected, and many more face the risk of exposure. So in 2003 we asked ourselves what more we might do, within our scope of expertise, to help stem the spread of the disease among our employees and their families.

We incorporated an HIV/AIDS Guideline into our Global Health Standard at the core of which is the practice of non-discrimination in job screening and during employment. This standard follows the ILO Guidelines on HIV/AIDS.

Education is fundamental to how we address all our health and safety risks and we invest heavily in making training available to all employees. So, in addition to the guideline, we started a campaign to raise awareness and encourage a preventive approach. In 2005, this campaign was reinforced and all locations in high-risk areas were asked to use the educational materials developed by our in-house medical advisor to ensure their employees and their families are informed on how to prevent STDs, including HIV/AIDS.

While our employees and their families are our first priority, we've also started to take our awareness campaign to high-risk communities where we have outreach relationships as part of an effort to share our health and safety practices externally.