As an extract, here an email interview with Masud Parvez, previously the Training Manager and now the Project Coordinator of the Bangladesh OHS Initiative for Workers and Community.
At the end of the 20-day training course, the first group of participants carried out several training programs for their own organizations, part of the general effort of the participating organizations to make occupational health and safety a part of their regular project activities. Our records show that 20
of the program graduates from the five organizations participating last year carried out a total of 106 training sessions, each lasting from two hours to all day long, for 2,400 participants. Each organization tends to focus on specific topics. For example, some focused on labor law and the role of safety committees, others on hygiene in the workplace, and still others on gender and domestic and workplace violence.
According to our follow-up training plan based on discussions with the member organizations, they will conduct another 108 trainings reaching 2,160 participants by November. These trainings will be
conducted by graduates of both groups, with the new graduates leading two sessions each.
Of the 29 graduates of the first class, 25 have attended refresher courses. (The other four participants left their organizations for different reasons, mostly because they moved back to their homes in the countryside. The lives of garment workers are very unstable.) Of the refresher courses, the favorite topics included Hazard Mapping, Chemical Safety, Building and Fire Safety, the Functions of Safety Committees, Leadership, and Collective Bargaining & Conflict Management. They also appreciated the class organized as a group effort to develop a 2-hour workshop on basic OHS for RMG workers.
How far along is the 2018 class in their 20-day course?
The course is scheduled to be completed by 7 October 2018. We held the 5-day intensive training in the first days of July at the GK campus in Savar. An additional 14 one-day sessions were held through the end of September at various locations, including a very exciting factory visit in Mirpur, where participants got to walk-through a real garment factory and use checklists to note conditions that were in or out of compliance. For this second course, we have 29 participants from all six of the Initiative organizations. So far, not a single member has dropped out!
This is an important project as it’s designed to help build capacity within Bangladeshi communities. Once trainers are trained, they will be able to provide training to many, thereby raising awareness of health and safety more widely. IOSH is very pleased to be involved and we’re delighted that the project has made such a positive start.
Richard Jones, Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Institution of Occupational Safety and Health, United KingdomWhat have been the biggest challenges for the OHS Initiative over the past 2 years?
Successfully carrying out the 20-day training course is our biggest challenge. It takes a lot of effort to identify and enroll the participants from the six member organizations, and
assess the varying levels of their skills and needs. Developing and adapting the curriculum so that it is accessible to all,
and finding the specific resource persons for each topic
is difficult. And resolving time management and logistics problems for the participants, who as low-wage workers may have little control over their time, is hard.
Arranging the follow-up or refresher trainings is likewise difficult. Workers are busy with their work from dawn to dusk, they have one off day – Friday – and we take that day from them and they hardly have the three hours to devote to it. This has led us to develop a shorter refresher module of two hours.
And as you know, keeping a successful partnership and collaboration going among six partner organizations, all with their own work and priorities, is not easy.
Despite these challenges, we have successfully (almost) completed two intensive 20-day training efforts for 58 worker educators. These workers have carried out more than 100 workshops reaching another 2,400 workers. We humbly believe that the project is a smashing success!
What have been the most satisfying aspects so far for you personally?
This project will develop 75 people from the grassroots as OHS experts. They will work directly with the workers so the workers will benefit. They will improve the lives of so many. This was the dream to start with, and I feel proud that in the first and second group of graduates, the participants’ eagerness to learn and ability to achieve have met very high marks.
The OHS Initiative governing board members and donors have been very positive. Whenever I seek suggestions or feedback, or if I raise any issues regarding the project, they respond promptly and helpfully. Though ensuring workers safety is always challenging, I am confident that as six well- known and respected organizations working together, we will overcome the barriers much more effectively than if it was any one organization working alone.
You can find some of the videos of the sessions here.
Major milestones during 2018
• March 17 – Governing Board meeting
• March 31 – Trainers’ Networking meeting
• April 7 – Trainers’ Networking meeting
• April 25 to 29 – Five-day refresher training for the 2017 graduates
• June 23 – Governing Board meeting
• June 30 to July 4 – Five-day session inaugurates the second Training-of-Trainers course
• July 26 – first of 14 one-day modules to complete the second ToT course in October
• September 8 – Technical Committee meeting to prepare follow-up trainings
• September 14 – field trip to a working factory to practice inspection skills
• September 23 – Training module on gender OHS issues and reproductive health
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