ASEAN presents award for outstanding workplaces

ARROW Award Ceremony, Bogor. Indonesia 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOGOR, 14 September 2016 – Today, six private companies from ASEAN Member States received the ASEAN Red Ribbon for Outstanding Workplace (ARROW) Award for their remarkable initiatives to create a safe and healthy working environment through HIV and AIDS awareness and prevention programmes for their employees. The Standard Chartered Bank of Brunei Darussalam, ACLEDA Bank of Cambodia, Kaltim Prima Coal of Indonesia, Sime Darby Group of Malaysia, Maynilad Water Services Inc. of the Philippines, and Microchip Technology Co. Ltd. of Thailand were given the ARROW trophies and certificates co-signed by H.E. Hanif Dhakiri, Minister of Manpower of the Republic of Indonesia, and H.E. Le Luong Minh, Secretary-General of ASEAN.

In line with the goal of the ARROW Award, that is to cultivate better awareness and greater involvement of the business leaders in achieving zero new-HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths in the workplace in ASEAN Member States, the six companies also provide voluntary counseling and care support treatments to employees with HIV and AIDS based on principles of confidentiality and non-discrimination.

H.E. Vongthep Arthakaivalvatee, Deputy Secretary-General for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC), highlighted in his remarks, “we have witnessed significant transformation in our societies, but the journey towards ‘Three Zeros’ is still on-going. Ending the epidemic of AIDS by 2030, one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, may be ambitious but it is achievable in our region as long as we, together, play our individual and collective roles to overcome the challenges ahead of us.”

The Inaugural ARROW Award Ceremony was hosted by the Ministry of Manpower of the Republic of Indonesia. The award will continue once every two years under the coordination of the ASEAN Business Coalition on HIV and AIDS (ASEAN BCA). The Coalition was established by the ASEAN Labour Ministers Meeting in 2014 to promote greater involvement of employers’ associations in ASEAN Member States in HIV and AIDS prevention and control in the workplace, and to encourage the inclusion of HIV prevention and control in the workplace into the business agenda. The Coalition’s members include the existing national business coalitions on AIDS and employers’ associations in ASEAN Member States. The ASEAN BCA Coordinator will be handed over from Indonesia (2014-2016) to Malaysia (2016-2018) at the end of the 2^nd Meeting of the ASEAN BCA tomorrow.