Liberia: Red Cross Commemorates World Safety and Health Day at Work

A Red Cross employee teaches CEMENCO employees on how to administer first-aid treatments to a victim

 

The Liberian National Red Cross (LNRC) over the weekend celebrated World Safety and Health Day at work at the Liberia Cement Corporation on the Japan Free Way.

The annual event, held April 28, every year, is an awareness-raising campaign intended to focus international attention on the magnitude of the problem and on how promoting and creating a safety and health culture can help reduce the number of work-related deaths and injuries.

The Red Cross held this year’s celebration at the Liberia Cement Corporation on the Japan Free Way where safety and first aid experts demonstrated how to provide first aid treatments to conscious and unconscious victims.

“After the Covid-19 pandemic, this strategy gained importance by establishing a culture of safety and health. During the pandemic, the effective OSH system had meaningful engagement from governments, employers, employees, public health actors, and other important parties at the national and company levels,” LNRC Business Manager of Workplace First Aid, Marcus D. Washington said.

Washington added that this initiative plays an essential role in maintaining workplace environments by ensuring workers’ safety and health. This year’s World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2023 theme is “A safe and healthy working environment as a fundamental principle and right at work.”

Washington explained that the focus of the theme is to provide highlights on fostering excellent workplace health through a safe and healthy work environment. He detailed that the primary goal for this day is to maintain high standards of safety and health, which should be distributed equitably in all sectors of society.

For her part, the Human Resource Manager at the Liberia Cement Corporation Madam Kulubo Eunice Korkorlor thanked the Red Cross for always partnering with them in ensuring that all workplaces are safe.

In June 2022, the International Labor Conference (ILC) decided to include “a safe and healthy working environment” in the ILO’s framework of fundamental principles and rights at work. In 2003, the International Labor Organization (ILO), began to observe World Day in order to stress the prevention of accidents and diseases at work, capitalizing on the ILO's traditional strengths of "tripartism and social dialogue."

On 28 April 2023, the ILO celebrated this decision, bringing together experts and constituents to discuss the implications it has for the world of work, as well as how to practically implement this right in the world of work.

It also serves to present the findings of research on the implementation status of various provisions of the fundamental Conventions No. 155 and No. 187. This celebration is an integral part of the Global Strategy on Occupational Safety and Health of the ILO, as documented in the Conclusions of the International Labor Conference in June 2003.

One of the main pillars of the Global Strategy is advocacy, the World Day for Safety and Health at Work is a significant tool to raise awareness of how to make work safe and healthy and of the need to raise the political profile of occupational safety and health.

The day also coincides with the International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers organized worldwide by the trade union movement since 1996. However, this year’s World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2023 theme is “A safe and healthy working environment as a fundamental principle and right at work.”

Washington explained that the focus of the theme is to provide highlights on fostering excellent workplace health through a safe and healthy work environment. He detailed that the primary goal for this day is to maintain high standards of safety and health, which should be distributed equitably in all sectors of society.