For Tajik migrant workers, life is not easy.  Their chief aim is to find employment to sustain their families.  They are hard workers.  They work difficult jobs.  Many of them are young, just out of school, and have never been outside of Tajikistan.  At any point in time, 1 million Tajik men and 100,000 Tajik women are outside of Tajikistan seeking employment.  Many find work at construction sites.

They find themselves in an unfamiliar world. A world where they can come face-to-face with HIV and tuberculosis (TB) — diseases they often don’t understand.  While efforts have been made to educate them about both diseases, many of the young Tajiks don’t understand medical language and mix information they’ve heard about HIV with that of other diseases. 

Operation Mercy’s HIV trainer from the Dushanbe office travels to workers miles from home and to their families in Tajikistan, giving seminars about the disease and how it is transmitted.  Perhaps half of the men he talked with in a recent seminar knew something about HIV.  

The workers attending the recent seminar were touched that the trainer cared enough to come from Tajikistan to help them.  One man cried as he told his story of being HIV-positive, wondering if his wife is infected, being concerned for his children and afraid to return home because his family knows nothing of his condition.  Our trainer told the workers, “Life is not finished!”  While one cannot be healed from HIV, one can live years with special medication and treatment.  He cautioned the men to practice HIV-prevention methods for themselves and their families.