01-07-2010 GoodElectronics: Electronics companies, including HP, participate in factory-based women’s health initiative in Mexico

Excerpt from the GoodElectronics website;

HERproject, Health Enables Return, is a factory-based women’s health initiative by BSR that aims to provide positive benefits for women and business. The HERproject workplace programme uses a peer-education training model. The programme is 12 months in duration and includes engagement with factory management to establish roles and responsibilities, an assessment of female workers’ health needs, peer educator trainings, and factory- based outreach activities. Programmes engage clinic staff and middle management to ensure that factory-based support is built and sustained after activities begin. The programme concludes with a discussion with factory management on methods to maintain the established investment in female workers’ health.

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One of the participating companies in HERproject is electronics brand company Hewlett Packard and its supplier Pegatron in Mexico. Working with Hewlett-Packard and a local organisation, Health and Community Development, Ciudad Juárez (SADEC), BSR launched HERproject in Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez. With violent crimes against women common and high instances of hypertension and diabetes, Juárez is a particularly dangerous and unhealthy place for young women, making it an ideal location for a workplace women’s health programme.

At Pegatron, one of HP’s participating suppliers, 47 peer educators were trained and later shared their knowledge with 1,090 (or 94 percent) of their female co-workers. Women used breaks, meal times, and factory-provided commute buses as opportunities to share information. The factory clinic also provided checkups to support the educational program activities, such as diabetes screenings, breast and uterine cancer screenings, blood-pressure screenings, vaccinations, a health fair, and pregnancy and child-care counseling. In addition to conducting quantitative surveys of 10 percent of the female factory population, Pegatron’s on-staff social worker, Vicky Corona, and BSR HERproject Manager Racheal Yeager interviewed female factory workers, peer educators, the factory nurse, and factory managers to discuss their experiences with HERproject. Interviewees felt that HERproject created multiple benefits for both individuals and the company.

About the program, HP’s Supply Chain Social and Environmental Responsibility Global Program Manager Zoe McMahon said, “In addition to improvements in workers’ understanding of many preventable diseases, the HERproject program has also provided an avenue for women to become spokespersons on behalf of other women workers with factory management about important health topics.”