Staff of Standard Chartered Volunteer for HIV Counseling and Testing
Accra, July 18, 2008 – Over a hundred staff of Standard Chartered have engaged in a Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) at the Bank’s Head Office on the High Street, Accra.
The exercise which involved group counselling, individual pre-test counselling, testing, blood pressure checks, and post-test counselling, was jointly organised by the Ghana Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GBCA), GTZ Private Public Partnership Tuberculosis/HIV team and HIV champions of the Bank as part of the Bank’s sustainability efforts under its Living with HIV agenda.
Counsellors from the Ridge Hospital in Accra facilitated engaging sessions aimed at increasing awareness on HIV issues and inducing behavioural change towards uptake of preventive, curative and rehabilitative measures relating to Sexually Transmitted Infections, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis.
Commenting, Nii Okai Nunoo, SCB’s Area Head of Corporate Affairs for West Africa, said: “Our response to HIV/AIDS reflects our values – values that drive all our actions and are fundamental to becoming the World’s Best International Bank. Our aim has been to create an environment free from prejudice where people can talk openly about sexual behaviour and HIV/AIDS. We believe that education and testing is key to slowing the spread of HIV - 90% of those infected do not know they are. As the Right Partner to all our stakeholders, we remain committed to implementing education programmes and promoting confidential testing to protect our workforce.”
Dr. Adriana Ignea, Programme Officer, GBCA, who supervised the session, had this to say: “The entire event was very successful. Standard Chartered Bank has an internationally recognised HIV Workplace Program Policy and a well-functioning HIV committee which continues to train and work with HIV champions with programmes extended to the community. Last year, the Bank received the GBC 2007 Award for Core Competency.”
A follow-up counselling and testing session is scheduled for a later date to explore the possibility of conducting rapid tests for syphilis, blood sugar, malaria, etc aimed at addressing the health concerns of staff and to reduce the fear of stigma and discrimination.
Standard Chartered’s response to managing HIV/AIDS in the workplace is borne out of a commercial imperative – to ensure a healthy and stable workforce. The Bank is committed to the Clinton Global Initiative to educate one million people on HIV/AIDS by 2010 and has committed its core skills, resources and networks to HIV/AIDS programmes as part of its Sustainability agenda.
For more information, please contact:
Nii Okai NunooArea Head of Corporate Affairs, West Africa
Tel: +233(0)21 669688 Fax: +233 (0) 21 661676
Nii-Okai.Nunoo@standardchartered.com