A notice board at the front of the store, called Positive Health, displays the CVs of people looking for work, and flyers advertising the services of electricians, gardeners and builders. What makes the service unique is that all the job seekers are HIV positive.

Unemployment in Lesotho has hovered around 35 to 40 percent for the past two decades, according to the UN, but recent retrenchments of Basotho working in neighbouring South Africa have worsened the rate of joblessness.

For the nearly one in four adults in Lesotho living with HIV, finding and keeping a job can be particularly tough. “Mostly they lose jobs because of their sickness,” said Lebakae, who started Positive Professionals, a free service for HIV-positive job seekers, two years ago.

Many become well enough to work again after they start taking antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, but the vast majority of people, who can’t afford private health care, have to queue for hours at one of the country’s overstretched public health facilities to access treatment.

“Patients have to go there often – one to three times per month – for taking blood, seeing a doctor and getting medication,” said Lebakae. “Some employers don’t like that, or you may not want them to know [your status] so you might decide to quit [your job].”

Positive Professionals, her employment service, solves this dilemma by ensuring that employers know they are hiring someone with a chronic condition, who will need time off every month.

A list of “Guidelines for employing an HIV positive person” on the service’s website, says “they should be able to work 40 to 48 hours per week under moderate stress and pressure”, and offers advice about the health needs of someone living with HIV, and information on the minimal risks of transmission.

Those wanting to join the service need only provide proof of their HIV status and permission to share their details with prospective employers. So far, about 500 have signed up.
Lebakae knows first-hand the challenges facing both HIV-positive employees and their employers. She, her husband and their five-year old daughter are all living with HIV, and have had to overcome many of their own health and financial challenges.

“One of the reasons we started the project was to empower positive people,” she said.

In 2008 she and her husband started a catering company that only employs HIV-positive staff. “We want to see directly what the challenges and advantages are, and up to now we are quite happy with the people we have.”

Although there are always more applicants than jobs, Lebakae estimated that about 200 people had found work through Positive Professionals. “Many organizations are very keen to support our vision of providing disadvantaged people with job opportunities instead of handouts,” she told IRIN/PlusNews. “Some employers want to show support because they have a family member who’s died of HIV, or some are HIV positive themselves.”

Geraldine Mothoteng, 36, secured a temporary, five-month placement as a secretary to the ambassador for the European Commission in Lesotho through Positive Professionals. She has now returned to running a small business selling clothes, but is struggling to support herself and her child.

“I think positive people should be taken the same as people living negatively because there’s nothing different, they can still do the same job,” she told IRIN/PlusNews.

She has no problem with her employer knowing her HIV status. “Monthly, positive people should go to check their CD4 count [to measure the strength of their immune system] and get medication, so [employers] have to know so they can give time to go to the clinic,” she said. “I’ll be lying otherwise, and it won’t make sense at all.”

This feature is used with permission from IRIN/PlusNews – www.plusnews.org