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The Nacala Phase V project which is being fund­ed by the African Devel­op­ment Bank (ADB) The Euro­pean Union (EU) and Malawi Gov­ern­ment (MG), plans on inten­si­fy­ing of HIV/Aids sen­si­ti­za­tion along Nsipe-Chin­geni-Liwonde Road Project.

The pri­ma­ry objec­tive of an HIV/AIDS sen­si­ti­za­tion cam­paign there­fore, is to raise aware­ness, pro­mote pre­ven­tion, and reduce stig­ma among work­ers, local com­mu­ni­ties, and road users, ulti­mate­ly aim­ing to pre­vent the spread of HIV and improve the well-being of those affect­ed. With­out a doubt the road project will bring an influx of not only con­struc­tion work­ers but also work­ers from with­in the com­mu­ni­ties look­ing for job opportunities.

In order to make sure that HIV/Aids sen­si­ti­za­tion is in place, Roads Author­i­ty has already moved in and mobilised a ser­vice provider. Their pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ties will be to  con­duct pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns on HIV/AIDS, Gen­der Based Vio­lence, Child Labour and Child Abuse and Exploita­tion in schools along the project road and areas sur­round­ing the bor­der. In con­sul­ta­tion with the dis­trict hos­pi­tals, the ser­vice provider will also con­duct VCT fol­low­ing the required pro­to­cols and link those that may be found to be HIV pos­i­tive to be ini­ti­at­ed on Anti- Retro­vi­ral Ther­a­py (ART).

In many devel­op­ing coun­tries, large infra­struc­ture con­struc­tion sites offer job oppor­tu­ni­ties that attract a large num­ber of young peo­ple many of whom migrate from poor rur­al areas of near­by regions. Con­struc­tion work­ers com­prise one of the key mobile groups togeth­er with truck­ers and trans­port work­ers. In this regard, ADB and oth­er devel­op­ment agen­cies are now incor­po­rat­ing into the design of infra­struc­ture projects HIV/AIDS pre­ven­tion pro­grams tar­get­ing migrant con­struc­tion work­ers and the local com­mu­ni­ties they inter­act with.

In an inter­view, Project coor­di­na­tor for the project, Patrick Kaman­ga told RA Cor­ner that to pre­vent fur­ther spread of the dis­ease, com­mu­ni­ties will there­fore require to be sen­si­tized on the pre­ven­tion and man­age­ment of HIV/AIDS.

“To reduce the risk of trans­mis­sion among con­struc­tion work­ers, local res­i­dent com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly the vul­ner­a­ble poor and minor­i­ty peo­ple, an advo­ca­cy pro­gram will be estab­lished with each tar­get group of local com­mu­ni­ties, con­trac­tors, and busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties involved in the road sec­tor,” he said