Early this week, the Botswana Telecommunications Corporation started its 2-week Wellness Exposition for its employees.
The Expo will run from the 4th ÔÇô 15th December. This activity began in Gaborone on Monday, December 04, 2006 with an opening ceremony at BTC Headquarters, Megaleng, and moved on to other BTC centres all around the country.
It is part of the Corporation’s initiatives to create awareness against HIV/AIDS and other chronic illnesses. The main objectives of the event are to promote employee wellness, encourage employees to take an interest in their own health, encourage staff to know HIV/ AIDS prevalence, and discourage stigmatization.
The Expo also enables the organization to come up with appropriate intervention strategies as may be needed. The Wellness Expo provides testing in areas such as Cholesterol, hypertension/blood pressure, blood sugar testing, and HIV.
In addition to getting diagnostic testing for a variety of illnesses, BTC staff benefit from the expertise of the supporting partners – Diagnofirm Laboratories, who advise on lifestyle changes in limiting and preventing a variety of diseases such as High blood pressure and high cholesterol, as well as preventing and managing chronic diseases such as sugar diabetes.
A deliberate decision has been made to expand the focus of the Expo beyond just HIV/AIDS in recognition of other silent chronic illnesses like sugar diabetes and high blood pressure which are globally taking the lead as causes of mortality.
The Wellness Expo is targeted at BTC staff all around the country, and its timing could not be better, with the World AIDS Day commemorated on the 1st December 2006.
