Praxis Note 12. Robbed of Dorothy! The Painful Realities of HIV/AIDS in an Organisation

In our hearts, I suppose, we thought we were immune from the impact of HIV/AIDS in our organisation. The problem was ‘out there’. We were really living in organisational denial. Yet as a provider of capacity building services, we (CDRN Community Development Resource Network in Uganda) had put more effort than most into mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into our organisation – just in case. We even had an HIV/AIDS policy that we hoped would protect us from the worst impact of the disease. This last year has shown us in very painful ways how naïve we were.

This is the story of how Dorothy, one of our staff members, became sick and passed away. It is a story that is becoming all too familiar in Africa. We share it in the hope that the story of Dorothy’s death provokes you to realise that AIDS can happen to your organisation; that it does help to be prepared; and yet however prepared you are, AIDS in the organisation is so painful and costly that it shakes you to