GBC's Migrant Worker HIV/AIDS Awareness Campaign

Background:
China has a 120 million migrant population most of whom leave their hometown and families for jobs in the cities. Construction, railroad, heavy labor, services industries account for most of the migrant population in China. A majority of these workers find employment in large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai , Shenzhen, and other similar major cities. It is estimated there are 4 million migrant workers in Beijing alone.

As most of the migrant workers are young and sexually active, when they are away from spouses, they are likely to seek commercial sex. Due to their low education status, they are unaware of the risks accompanied with commercial sex. These factors make them vulnerable to STD and AIDS.

As a result, the China Ministry of Health labeled migrant workers as a high-risk population for HIV transmission. The government mandate called on reinforcing the HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention efforts directed toward the migrant workers. The government also launched National Migrant Worker Education Program at the end 2005 to address this issue. One of the major goals of the Central government is to promote HIV/AIDS awareness campaign toward the migrant workers, a point reinforced by Vice Premier Wu Yi on WAD in 2005.

GBC Response
Responding to this call to action, GBC China plans to mobilize its member companies to focus on awareness campaign toward the migrant workers. This focus would include the following elements for the coming year, including:

1. Direct HIV/AIDS awareness training for migrant workers at construction sites, at migrant workers centers, at service centers, and at other venues.
2. Distribution of HIV/AIDS messages printed on playing cards to migrant workers on trains during periods of when they travels from/to home to cities. The cards are likely be kept by these people and whenever they play the cards, the HIV/AIDS messages will be delivered.
3. Distribution of calendars with HIV/AIDS messages to migrant workers and their families in the rural areas. With the printed HIV/AIDS information on the calendars, the message is likely being delivered through out the year to the recipients.
4. Teach HIV/AIDS knowledge at schools for migrant workers' children including primary, high school, and colleges using a peer training program.

Pilot HIV/AIDS Awareness Training program
In this connection, GBC collaborated with CDC, UNAIDS, and NGOs to develop a HIV/AIDS awareness direct training program for migrant workers. This program was tested at a construction site on Nov 14, 2006. The venue was a construction site for a 2008-Olympic venue. Approximately 400 workers are employed at this construction site and they live in dormitories in two buildings nearby. GBC conducted the awarenss training in the dormitory, with approximately 50 migrant workers in attendance. GBC provided reading materials, pamphlets, playing cards with AIDS messages, and showed film clips. To enhance interaction with the workers, some towels, toothpaste, and condoms were distributed as small gifts to the migrant workers.

Direct Training Procedures
At the inception of the training, a questionnaire was distributed to the workers to collect basic information on HIV/AIDS knowledge. The questionnaire comprised of ten questions, covering HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention knowledge. After that, a film clip by Yaoming and Magic Johnson was shown to give the audience a general idea about HIV/AIDS. Then a presentation on HIV/AIDS status in China and its impact was presented. Specific focus was made on the main transmission mode of HIV and corresponding prevention methods. After that, pamphlets were distributed for the audience for their reading. Condoms were also handed out to remind the workers its prevention function. At the end of the training, the quiz was conducted again to evaluate the effect of the training.

The training was welcome by the workers. During the film showing and presentation, they paid much attention and raised many questions on HIV/AIDS. In the discussion following the training, the workers told us that they only heard of the disease, but never imagined its impact so malign. The training conducted by GBC was valuable and assisted the migrant workers in learning the perils of HIV/AIDS and enabled them to learn the prevention methods. The feedback from the participants was that the interactive nature of the training engaged the workers and enabled them to learn quickly.

Measurement and Evaluation
In order to measure the effectiveness of the training, GBC conducted pre and post questionnaire with the participants. While the test is far from perfect, it does show a marked improvement in HIV/AIDS knowledge after the training. The result is shown below.

Question – 25 participants were asked to answer the following questions:	Correct Answer pre-training	Correct Answer post-training	Change
1.AIDS can be prevented	14	25	79%
2. Drugs cannot cure AIDS, but can mitigate symptoms.	14	24	71%
3. PHA can look healthy.	13	23	77%
4. Right condom use can prevent AIDS.	12	25	108%
5. Sharing needles can transmit AIDS.	13	24	85%
6. Blood test is only way to know HIV/AIDS status.	12	23	92%
7. Mosquito cannot transmit AIDS.	10	25	150%
8. Living with PHA will not transmit AIDS.	10	20	100%
9. STD will accelerate spread of AIDS.	12	25	108%
10. Hospitals and CDC are places to take HIV test.	14	21	50%

Result:
The above table shows the positive effect of the direct training that is reflected by the increase in the number of correct answers. Although this is only one example, it does show that the direct training can yield positive results and indicated the effectiveness of the training.

Summary:
With the completion of the pilot direct training program at the construction site, it is clear that such training works and promotes HIV/AIDS awareness among the migrant workers. The following is the conclusion:

1. The migrant workers are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS due to their low HIV/AIDS knowledge as evident by the answers to the HIV/AIDS knowledge questionnaire before the training.
2. Training conducted by GBC can be effective in raising the knowledge migrant workers as evident by the post training test results, and
3. There is much work needs to be done to reach a large number of workers; GBC needs to mobilize its member companies to collaborate on this cause. Only with such support will we be able to increase capacity and attain sustainability in this initiative. In this connection, we will work with CR and the technical team to write up the details of the project and work with interested member companies to solicit participantion and support.