The committed effort of corporate entities in the fight against HIV/AIDS was acknowledged when the Guyana Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GBCHA) hosted an award ceremony on Saturday evening.

Minister of Labour Manzoor Nadir speaking at the 2009 Guyana Business Coalition on HIVAIDS awards.

The ceremony, at the Pegasus Hotel, saw representatives of members of various private entities presented with plaques and other tokens of appreciation for their workplace policies on HIV/AIDS.

Among those present were Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, who is performing the duties of President, Minister of Labour Manzoor Nadir, other ministers of Government and GBCHA’s Chairman Amanda St Aubyn.

The GBCHA, launched in May 2008, aims to assist the private sector in the HIV/AIDS fight in the workplace through technical assistance that helps organisations to apply their resources to this objective.

According to GBCHA’s Chairman, the Coalition engages the private sector through with the workplace, core competencies, community partnerships, advocacy and leadership.

Minister of Labour Manzoor Nadir, who was among those commending the GBCHA for its efforts, said there is still more work to be done in arresting and reducing the incidence of the deadly disease.

A section of the gathering at the Guyana Business Coalition on HIVAIDS 2009 awards.

In his remarks at the ceremony, the Labour Minister said the Coalition should be commended since 25 percent of its programme is resourced by the cash and kind members of the organisation. He urged, however, that ‘tens of thousands of businesses’ join the bandwagon.

“The businesses need to come on board not because there are lots of other people’s money to spend, but because we have a war to win. The socio-economic effect of this silent killer imposes a huge burden on our people,” Minister Nadir said.

Efforts to promote workplace initiatives on HIV/AIDS were highlighted in July 2008 with the launching of the National HIV/AIDS Workplace Policy. The policy, which is a voluntary one, was intended to outline the preconditions necessary for businesses to promote prevention, abstinence and care for infected persons.

Minister Nadir used the occasion to highlight the work done by the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security and the Labour Occupational Safety and Health Department in this regard.

“Our Labour Occupational Safety and Health Officers, in their inspections, are expected to encourage companies to start programmes and adopt the national HIV/AIDS policy… all of our trainees under our National Training Project for Youth Empowerment are given HIV/AIDS education at our weekly seminars for employers. This is also a standard item on our agenda,” Minister Nadir emphasised.

During the ceremony, Republic Bank Guyana Limited won the business excellence award for its workplace programme to combat stigma and discrimination. Some 579 of it employees and contractors were part of the programme over the past year.

Republic Bank hosted sessions on HIV/AIDS which saw educational materials and condoms distributed to employees. The Bank also partnered with several other organisations in spreading the message.

Minister Nadir presented a plaque to representative of Bank, Jannis London.

The award for business excellence in core competence was given to Continental Group of Companies.

Scotia Bank won the business award for committed investment and was commended for its cooperation with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in communities through the offer of Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT), among other programmes.

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds presented the award to representative of the company, Jennifer Ally. (GINA)