The lo­cal fight against HIV/Aids has re­ceived an in­jec­tion of $50,000 from T&TEC, through do­na­tions to sev­er­al NGOs in­volved in HIV/Aids ed­u­ca­tion and care.

At a pre­sen­ta­tion cer­e­mo­ny at T&TEC's Mt Hope of­fices on April 19, pres­i­dent of the To­ba­go Oa­sis Foun­da­tion, Dale Trim, thanked the com­mis­sion for its sup­port over the years and not­ed that, "In­ter­na­tion­al sup­port for (HIV/Aids in) the Caribbean has dried up and it's good to know that com­pa­nies like T&TEC are as­sist­ing."

Ear­li­er, T&TEC's gen­er­al man­ag­er Kelvin Ram­sook said the cash con­tri­bu­tions were among the com­pa­ny's ef­forts to take the cause be­yond the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

He said: "Our cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pre­scribes that we al­so play a role in na­tion build­ing, so apart from our em­ploy­ees we al­so have a com­mit­ment to the mem­bers of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty."

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease, nine or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing four from To­ba­go, re­ceived cheques to as­sist in their care and ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes.

In­clud­ed in the group of re­cip­i­ents was the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of Health and So­cial Ser­vices Shel­don Cun­ning­ham, the co-or­di­na­tor and pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the To­ba­go Aids So­ci­ety.

Cun­ning­ham ex­pressed grat­i­tude that groups in­volved in HIV/Aids work for sev­er­al decades con­tin­ue to re­ceive much-need­ed sup­port from cor­po­rate cit­i­zens.

On the mat­ter of T&TEC's in-house ef­forts, Tania Par­rott, man­ag­er of the Min­istry of Labour's Work­place Ad­vo­ca­cy and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Cen­tre (HASC), ap­plaud­ed the com­mis­sion's ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness in­ter­ven­tions.

"Based on what I've seen, T&TEC is a leader in work­place out­reach," she said.

She al­so com­mend­ed the ex­is­tence and en­force­ment of the com­mis­sion's work­place pol­i­cy on HIV/Aids.

The re­lease adds that T&TEC's pol­i­cy pre­scribes that, among oth­er things, "all rea­son­able as­sis­tance, which may in­clude coun­selling, sick leave and oth­er pro­vi­sions" be pro­vid­ed for em­ploy­ees liv­ing with HIV; and that they be treat­ed "no less favourably than staff with any oth­er se­ri­ous ill­ness."

Since 2002, T&TEC has been con­duct­ing con­tin­u­ous train­ing and aware­ness pro­grammes for its em­ploy­ees, high­light­ed by the in­tro­duc­tion of its work­place pol­i­cy on HIV/Aids in 2011.

T&TEC's HIV/Aids Work­place Ed­u­ca­tion com­mit­tee, which spear­heads these ac­tiv­i­ties, will soon com­plete an im­pact as­sess­ment of its work, as well as train 30 more Peer Ed­u­ca­tors, to in­crease the cur­rent com­ple­ment to 53. This will in­crease the ra­tio of coun­sel­lors to em­ploy­ees to ap­prox­i­mate­ly one to 56.

List of re­cip­i­ents:

�2 Friends for Life

�2 Moth­ers to Moth­ers

�2 Care Trinidad

�2 Care To­ba­go

�2 South Aids Sup­port

�2 Com Talk In­ter­na­tion­al

�2 To­ba­go Aids So­ci­ety

�2 To­ba­go Oa­sis Foun­da­tion

�2 Friends of To­ba­go (Aids So­ci­ety)