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The Minister of Health Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the president of the Transport and General Workers and vice-president of the National Bargaining Council Mr June Dube, colleagues in the road freight industry, ladies and gentlemen.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce 'Trucking Against AIDS', an iniative in the road freight sector to a crisis that is rapidly unfurling across our country.
'Trucking Against AIDS' brings together government, the trucking companies and the transport unions in a unique partnership to educate both management and workers about HIV (the virus that attacks the human immune system making the body weak and unable to fight off other infections) and AIDS (the final stage of the breakdown of the immune system that is a syndrome of illnesses as the result of the failure of the immune system to protect the body against infection).
As the project organisers will outline in their presentation, 'Trucking Against AIDS' carries the message of both prevention and care. It is also part of a larger iniative to mobilise sector by sector in the Transport industry, using our infrastructure and organisation, for campaigns that carry the message of awareness and prevention; and to build the capacity in the industry and in our c ountry to live positively with HIV/AIDS.
It is built on the foundation of the partnerships of our society: government and the private sector; workers and management; transport operators and commuters.
I am particularly proud to be part of 'Trucking Against Aids'. From the first meeting where employers and unions responded immediately to join forces to prevent the further spread of HIV/AIDS in their industry to the drawing up of a campaign strategy to ta ckle prejudice and put policy in place, both parties have come to the table.
I have no illusions how tough these issues will be for the entire trucking fraternity as AIDS throw out particular challenges in the workplace that will test the strategic management of staff and resources on both sides as well as their compassion.
But what I do know is that employers and employees must lock arms and not fists on this issue. We have to the find the way forward where employees can disclose their status without fear or prejudice.
Otherwise we will drive this epidemic further underground and our truckers will be decimated as their colleagues further north were.
If truckers cannot live positively with HIV/AIDS knowing that their companies will not victimise them, they will carry on working long hours further depleting their immune systems with the stress of operating heavy vehicles on all too often congested roads .
It is over the fate of these truckers, who literally keep the wheels of industry turning as they haul goods across our country, that the trucking companies and the transport unions are going to have to make a pact to move forward together.
AIDS is not a political issue, and it is certainly not a rallying call for other causes. It is a fundamental challenge to all South Africans because it is about human lives, and how we respond to these issues is how we build our nation.
I resisted the temptation to recite the statistics as the magnitude of our crisis is not easily comprehended in numbers such as 3 million people infected, 1,600 new infections daily etc.
I know from my Department's ARRIVE ALIVE road safety campaign that only accountants don't glaze over at numbers and projections of numbers that carry the message of death. They usually just leave an audience numb and feeling rather helpless.
If the numbers did ring up, South Africans would have woken up a long time ago to the magnitude of what we are facing in this country.
But the fact of the matter, whether it is too late nor not, we are all going to have to be woken out of our slumber as AIDS is a peculiar disease that leaves no one unaffected as it tears apart the fabric of our society.
And do not fool yourself, AIDS is not something that can be left to government and the health profession to deal with. AIDS is much much more than a health issue.
AIDS cuts across those neat compartments.
It can make orphans where there once were families, it can de-skill and decimate a labour force as it picks its way though the population, it can reduce the rate of economic growth as resources need to be gathered for nursing the sick and in the continued absence of a cure, it will confront generations to come even if we are successful in our prevention campaigns now as HIV-positive becomes people living with full-blown AIDS in years to come.
That is the crisis, but that is also the challenge that this epidemic presents our country. If we can build together HIV positive and negative we will break down the walls of silence that allows this killer to stalk our people.
Today is the start on a long road. It is one that we must travel together (even if we sometimes argue over the route) and build the partnership that formed this campaign: the unions and companies of the road freight industry, government and the NGOs.
If we get it right as we build together, I have not doubt that we can start to turn tide. But we must all play our role as winning the war against HIV/AIDS requires the effort of all South Africans.
I have pleasure introducing the project organisers, Susan Hyde (from Aids Education and Training) and Paul Mathews (from the Learning Clinic) to take us through the presentation of 'Trucking Against AIDS'.

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