With approximately one in every four people living with HIV, Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world. Despite continuous efforts from the government, community based organizations and international NGOs to promote HIV prevention, for some people getting tested remains taboo.

At North Star’s Roadside Wellness Centre in Ngwenya, near the border with South Africa, HIV counsellor and peer educator, Thabsile Sithole, is turning the tide.

Being HIV positive herself, Thabsile knows that an important step in increasing knowledge is to break through the stigma associated with testing. In order to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Thabsile initiated the LOVE campaign, in which a couple receives a gift if they get tested together. In this way they can celebrate their relationship through an act of openness and security, whatever the outcome of the test.

We would like to thank Thabsile, who we interviewed this past year as part of our Women and Wellness series, for instigating this exciting initiative and for sending us the photos! Here are a few:

For everyone in Ngwenya and beyond, all of us at North Star Alliance would like to wish you a happy and safe Valentine’s Day.

A small store owned by a local businessman stays open late into the night in Chirundu with customers watching a Harry Potter DVD on the television. This small settlement on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe is a key transit point on the Great North trucking route from South Africa through to East Africa and it has become notorious for its congestion as every day hundreds of trucks try to pass through the nearby border. It is estimated that there are more than 350 sex workers based in Chirundu who provide services to truck drivers and others. The area is known as an HIV transmission hotspot.

Normal life continues, however, for local residents who face the challenges of poverty, and here enjoy some free entertainment.

This photo was taken in Chirundu by Gideon Mendel.

The following article was written by Steve Banker and originally appeared on Logistics Viewpoints on 19 December 2011.

The Holidays are a time for giving. My posting today celebrates the best example of corporate giving that I came across in my travels this year. TNT, a large global provider of express deliveries, and ORTEC, a company that provides a logistics optimization and execution platform with advanced planning capabilities, are the two companies whose intelligent giving has helped to make the world a better place to live.

In October of 2005, the President of Malawi, a nation in southeast Africa, declared a national disaster due to maize harvest failures. The World Food Programme (WFP) had an extensive partnership with TNT focused on improving the logistics of delivering emergency relief services when these kinds of disasters occur. In this case, however, WFP could not transport enough foodstuffs into Malawi because of a shortage of drivers due to the African AIDS epidemic.

Long distance drivers in Africa are often away from their homes for months. Border crossings are a choke point; drivers frequently wait two or more days before they can cross the border. Not surprisingly, communities have developed at these crossing sites to serve the needs of drivers. In the evenings, even at small border crossings, two to three hundred prostitutes arrive seeking to ply their trade. It is easy to see why the AIDS epidemic in Africa has hit drivers particularly hard.

Throughout many of the countries within southern, eastern and western Africa, the railway infrastructure is still significantly underdeveloped. As a result, the majority of freight is transported by road. A lack of truck drivers, therefore, has a pernicious effect not only on the freight transport industry but more generally on trade within Africa.

But HIV is not the only prevalent disease. Communities along the main transport corridors of Africa are also affected by other sexually transmitted infections and communicable diseases. In short, there was a need for a solution to tackle this issue.

A nonprofit known as the North Star Alliance was formed in 2006 based on contributions from TNT and the WFP. North Star Alliance is building a network of low cost roadside health clinics at transport ‘hotspots’ in Africa so that long distance truck drivers and surrounding communities have sustainable access to basic health care.  Continue reading this post on Logistics Viewpoints

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ORTEC and North Star Alliance are participating in the “11partners in 2011” campaign. This campaign, organized by NUzakelijk.nl, recognizes partnerships between Non-Governmental Organizations (such as North Star) and commercial organizations such as ORTEC, one of North Star’s core partners.

With this campaign NUzakelijk, Partners4Change and Young Professionals Make the Difference aim to stimulate the cooperation between NGO’s and companies.

How to vote

Though the website states otherwise, we can vote till the 7th of December. To vote for North Star and ORTEC, visit the website: NUzakelijk.nl! On the right side you will find ORTEC under “Stem hier op de organisaties”. First column, above the last one (Oxfam). Select ORTEC, leave your e-mail address and vote. Don’t forget to confirm your vote in the e-mail that will be send to your e-mail address afterwards!

Vote Now

More Info

To read more about the partnership between ORTEC and North Star Alliance, read the following articles or visit our Core Partners page:

• New ORTEC system helps North Star Alliance to “Optimize the World”
• ORTEC selected as Awards Finalist for GBC’s 2011 Awards for Business Action on Health

What’s next?

On the 9th of December 11 finalists will pitch their concept/ partnership for a professional jury. Let’s hope – and vote! – , so North Star Alliance and ORTEC will make it to the top 11. The winner will get support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Erasmus University and organizers of this election.

Thank you in advance for your support!

This year, we enter the fourth decade of an epidemic that has had a profound impact on humanity. While part of this impact reflects the devastating human toll AIDS has had in communities around the globe, more recently it has also reflected tremendous feats of innovation and growing leadership from a diverse group of stakeholders. Today, on World AIDS Day, this has never been more apparent.

Today, a new joint report by the WHO, UNICEF and UNAIDS, the Report on the global HIV/AIDS response , highlights  ”extraordinary progress” in the global response to AIDS suggesting, for the first time ever, that we’re catching up to the epidemic.

Some of the highlights of this new report show a 15% reduction of new infections over the past decade and a 22% decline in AIDS-related deaths in the last five years. Further, anti-retroviral therapy, which not only improves the health and well-being of the infected people but also stops further HIV transmission, is now available to 6.65 million people world wide.

Despite this success, however, the report indicates that scaling up access to healthcare, testing, and treatment for key populations is a continued priority. In many of the regions North Star is active, this includes ensuring sex-workers and their direct and indirect contacts have access to HIV testing, treatment, information, and counselling. It also means continuing to scale up access for people on the move.

At North Star, this has been our primary objective since we began responding to AIDS in Africa’s transport sector six years ago. What began as a single roadside clinic has grown into a network that provides some of populations most at risk of contracting HIV and other communicable diseases, with essential access to primary and tailored health care services. In 2011, this has included providing over 34,000 people with HIV testing and counselling.

Over the next few weeks, North Star will be highlighting more of our 2011 impact, and some of the exciting initiativesa nd programmes we’ve planned for 2012.

Download the full: Report on the global HIV/AIDS response

This young bull elephant is a frequent visitor to the North Star Alliance Wellness Centre (top right) in Chirundu South, Zimbabwe. He often strolls by about 6pm with little more than a glance from staff. However, he has been known to snap off the water tap, trample some plants and startle the visiting North Star management team on a routine site visit!

“This system enables us to select optimal Roadside Wellness Centres locations”

After successfully developing North Star Alliance’s client health registration system, ORTEC has now delivered a new application that will assist North Star in determining optimal clinical locations and number of employees for its network of Roadside Wellness Centres (RWCs). The new solution is developed in cooperation with Paragon Decision Technology, using their mathematical optimization platform AIMMS.

“The delivery of this new system, named POLARIS (Program for Optimizing the Long-term Achievements of the Roadside Wellness Centres Investment Strategy), enables us to select optimal Wellness Centre locations, taking into account important factors such as continuity of care and number of visitors” explains Luke Disney, Executive Director of North Star Alliance.

Health services for mobile populations

North Star Alliance started as a practical industry response to an urgent health problem and has matured into a balanced approach that meets industry, public health and individual needs by establishing a network of drop-in health clinics, called Roadside Wellness Centres, at truck stops, ports, rail junctions and border crossings in low-income countries. The RWCs offer essential healthcare and information to mobile populations and roadside communities who are often unable to access conventional community or in-company-based health services due to their itinerant working conditions.

“ORTEC already provides invaluable support in this area with a customized client health registration system and passport system, called COMETS,” explains Luke Disney. “With POLARIS, ORTEC has developed an innovative application to help determine the optimal locations for North Star RWCs, without the need to invest a great deal of time and expense for research and data analysis. In our collaboration with ORTEC, we are always looking for ways how –in this case where – to best serve the truck drivers and the surrounding communities.”

‘Business Action on Health’ Awards

Earlier this year, the GBCHealth recognized ORTEC for its contribution to optimizing the logistical processes of North Star Alliance. “Our involvement in North Star’s mission to provide long distance truck drivers and corridor communities with sustainable access to healthcare and safety services has been extremely rewarding. For ORTEC, it is a real honor to have been recognized as a finalist in the 2011 Business Action on Health Awards,” adds Geerhard de Vries, VP Global Business Consulting for ORTEC.

About ORTEC

ORTEC is one of the largest providers of advanced planning and optimization software solutions and consulting services. Our solutions result in optimized fleet routing and dispatch, vehicle and pallet loading, workforce scheduling, delivery forecasting and network planning. ORTEC provides best-of-breed, custom made and SAP® certified and embedded solutions, supported by strategic partnerships. In the area of Advanced Planning Solutions, ORTEC has over 1,550 customers worldwide, over 550 employees and offices in Europe, North America, Asia and the Pacific Region.

More information is available at: www.ortec.com

About AIMMS

AIMMS is advanced optimization software for building operations research applications and advanced
planning systems for decision support. AIMMS enables businesses and universities to apply Operations Research (OR) techniques successfully in the easiest and most effective way. It speeds up application development and lowers cost compared to direct programming alternatives and competing modeling packages. AIMMS is developed and marketed by Paragon Decision Technology B.V. Paragon has offices in The Netherlands, USA and Singapore.

More information is available at: www.aimms.com

For more Information Contact:
Ms. Robin Landis
Director Communications
robin@northstar-alliance.org
Tel: +254 736 300 413

This month, North Star Alliance and Cell-Life, a not-for-profit organisation that provides technology for the management of HIV, launched an innovative SMS-based pilot programme designed to deliver important health training information to truck drivers daily across Southern Africa. The pilot, which delivers one message per day to drivers who have signed up, covers a range of pertinent health topics, including:

• Prevention and treatment information about HIV, STIs, TB, and other communicable diseases,
• Dietary and nutritional information,
• Treatment adherence reminders,
• Substance abuse information,
• Stress reduction,
• Myths and stigma,
• and important questions to ask a clinician at your next visit.

“Being able to keep in touch with the drivers between our Roadside Wellness Centres is another way North Star is showing their commitment to bringing health to the mobile workforce 24/7 and we are very excited at the possibilities our partnership with Cell-Life is opening up!” says Paul Matthew, Director Africa at North Star Alliance.

As this partnership and programme grows, visit our blog to stay up to date on developments and results from this exciting initiative. Until then, all of us at North Star hope you:

Live healthy, live long! To do this get support, eat healthily, take regular exercise, relax and have good times, and avoid alcohol and smoking.

Cell-Life is a not-for-profit organisation that provides innovative technology for the management of HIV, as well as other infectious diseases such as TB. Cell-Life’s primary function is to address health0related logistical challenges in developing countries, such as the provision and distribution of anti-retroviral treatment, continuous patient monitoring and evaluation, and collection and communication of relevant data. This is achieved through the use and development of innovative software supported by existing technologies such as mobile phones and the internet.

This is the main corridor for trucks carrying goods between Mombasa and Kampala (Uganda) and you can tell that the drivers are in it for the long haul. Staying safe on this road requires skilled driving, quick reflexes and a heavy dose of good luck. Robin Landis, Director of Communications at North Star, was happy to distract herself by trying to capture it in focus.