Hard days ahead for HIV peer counsellors

November 28, 2007

Wednesday November 28 2007, Y Maheswara Reddy

BANGALORE: Lack of corporate support is making it tough for the HIV

positive women desirous of working as peer counsellors. With not many

corporates coming forward to lend a helping hand, empowerment of

women living with HIV remains a mirage. There is no dearth of Non-

Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that are providing vocational

training to HIV positive people.

Many have benefited from the training. Some out of these have been

appointed as peer counsellors at Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) centres

and a few are working with Milana, a family support network of people

living with HIV and AIDS.

A peer counsellor at an ART centre or the Voluntary Counselling and

Testing Centre (VCTC) is also an HIV positive person who is taking

the ART medicine himself. Peer counsellors at the ART centres

basically create confidence in the patients and talk about the basic

facts of HIV infection and testing methods. For ART users, they also

discuss the importance of a good lifestyle and regular medication.

Many women living with HIV are looking for job opportunities since

most of them are widows and have no means to survive. Some of them do

not even manage to get employed as domestic helps. Even if they do,

they lose their job whenever they fall ill.

Milana has appointed eight women as peer counsellors. The

organisation gets funds for the same from ActionAid. But, the latter

funds a project for only so many years. ``As of now, ActionAid

provides financial support for five peer counsellors and donors help

the rest three. There are 10 more women who desperately need

financial support,'' says Jyothi Kiran, project director, Milana.

Any corporate looking forward to sponsoring peer counsellors can call

25545691 or e-mail: milana–bgl@...

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