Educators expand their knowledge
The Annual Health and Wellness Peer Educators Day was held at the PFG Mirror Plant Training Centre in New Era on Thursday.
The Health and Wellness Forum of the Eastern Gauteng Chamber of Commerce and Industry provides a platform for health and wellness peer educators of all member companies to come together to further their knowledge on health matters and to network with one another with regard to their volunteer roles and responsibilities as educators in their companies.
Several peer educators from Gold1, Impala, Cobra and PFG, as well as organisations from the community, were present.
“Volunteer peer educators communicate information to other employees concerning health and wellness matters in order to empower their fellow employees, their families and communities to live the best lives,” says chairman of the forum, Pule de Roland-Phillips.
One of the topics this year was sexuality and it included issues around lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) matters.
The other pertinent topic concerned the new face of addiction known as “process addiction” which is the addiction to various practices or behaviours, as opposed to substances.
The peer educators were exposed to and explored these topics so as to understand them for themselves, so that they are better able to communicate the new information to fellow employees.
All of the peer educators enjoyed the human sexuality presentation by Delene van Dyk, a sexuality educator, nurse and educator therapist, as she broke down the ‘Boxes and Binaries’ into which we place ourselves and others in terms of biological identity, sexual identity, gender identity and sexual orientation, and how all of these are fluid rather than static and that they can, and do, change.
Psychologist Sorika de Swardt talked about addictions in her capacity as a psychologist and addiction consultant at Elim Clinic, a professional treatment centre for addiction in Kempton Park
“When people hear the word addiction, they commonly think about addictions to substances such as drugs, alcohol, nicotine and medication.
“But there are ‘process addictions’ which are addictions to certain behaviours like gambling, pornography, digital or social media, food and sex addiction,” says de Swardt.
Winky Selepe and Duduzile Sibanyoni, peer educators from Impala, have been attending the forum meetings and events for a number of years.
“The forum helps a lot with regards to information about health and wellness,” says Selepe.
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