Sustainability / HIV and AIDS / Community initiatives

Community initiatives

We are committed to working with communities, public health authorities and other stakeholders to improve education, protection and prevention of public health risks and widespread diseases.

We aim to address any public health risks that may impact our workforce, their families or the communities associated with our operations. We are committed to working with communities, public health authorities and other stakeholders to improve education, protection and prevention of public health risks and widespread diseases. We seek to minimise any health risks from our operations to the broader community, including through comprehensive air quality and dust monitoring programmes, initiatives to remediate areas of historic contamination and community information campaigns. The major public health issues we face in some regions are HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

In 2007, Xstrata Coal South Africa, through its partner Re-Action!, entered into a collaborative relationship with the local government of the Mpumalanga Province, non-governmental organisations and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), forming a Public Private Mix (PPM). Building on our workplace wellness, occupational health and safety services, the PPM is working to strengthen community-based health systems.

The PPM is active in three districts in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa, where there are many mining operations and the rural and remote locations of the company sites have resulted in high numbers of migrant labour. Mpumalanga has a population of 3.5 million and community settlements are widely dispersed throughout the province, posing a challenge to immediate and nearby access to health services. Approximately one in four adults in the province is living with HIV.

The PPM programme began by specifically targeting the treatment of HIV and AIDS and TB. It integrates broader development objectives of economic empowerment, gender-specific programming, nutrition and education to create and sustain economic growth in communities. The bottom-up grassroots service is complemented with efforts to build capacity and support infrastructure in local clinics and hospitals to increase rural communities’ access to HIV, AIDS and TB services.

During 2008, the PPM facilitated the accreditation of four community-based clinics as anti-retroviral sites, decentralising health services and allowing for HIV positive patients to be cared for in their communities. Xstrata Coal South Africa has assisted in the strengthening of health systems in all provinces and has built or upgraded wellness clinics and pharmacies at five of its sites.

This was supported by the training and development of a team of community outreach workers who visit community members’ homes to provide voluntary testing and to profile individual family needs and potential health risks. The PPM’s target of testing and counselling 1,750 people for HIV in 2008 was surpassed and 3,280 undertook voluntary testing during the year.

In 2008, Xstrata Coal South Africa’s role in the PPM was internationally recognised when it was awarded the inaugural Business Excellence Award for Expanded Community Programmes by the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria (GBC). Xstrata plc Chief Executive Mick Davis gave a keynote speech at the awards dinner held in New York in June.

Last Modified on July 21 2009, 14:02:27 PST

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