New online platform and game board on safety and health at work

MANILA - The International Labour Organization (ILO) Youth4OSH launched a new online platform to build a culture of safety and health in the Philippines. The platform features relevant, practical, and user-friendly tools to raise awareness and to spur action on occupational safety and health (OSH).

“The platform is a valuable and novel tool, which will help us achieve our goal of making OSH a way of life, a passion, and a mission of every Filipino, most especially the next generation,” said Secretary Silvestre Bello III in a statement delivered by Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad III of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

Lack of awareness among the youth on OSH and the pressure to accept any job put their health and safety at risk. This leads to more young workers suffering from injury and illness up to 40 per cent, at far higher rates compared to adults.

“Safety and health is a basic human right. Work situations that put at risk the lives or health of workers are unacceptable and have high economic, social, political and human costs. We need to invest in young people as the future of work,” said Director Khalid Hassan, represented by ILO Senior Programme Officer Ma. Concepcion Sardaña during the launch held on 31 July 2019.

According to Director Hassan, factors responsible for high injury rates for young workers include a lack of awareness of workplace safety principles and rights at work, limited job skills and experience, poor training, assignment to inappropriate tasks, precarious terms of employment and long working hours in difficult conditions, among others.

The ILO Youth4OSH engaged young workers and employers in Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Viet Nam for preventive safety actions. Funded by the United States Council for International Business (USCIB) Foundation, the project focused on the construction and manufacturing global supply chains given high rates of occupational injury and illness.

The new platform is a key component of the project to help reduce workplace injuries, fatalities, and occupational diseases through increased awareness.

Aside from the platform, the launch also featured the OSHnopoly board game, developed by Ms Beatriz Brondial, an OSH youth champion from the Philippines. OSHnopoly gives players the knowledge and experience to identify workplace hazards in a fun and creative way. The board game is available in regular or a tabletop version and a human-sized version.
The ILO Youth4OSH project envisions a digital version of the OSHnopoly board game, which will also be available through the platform to help build a culture of prevention.

For further information please contact:

Minette Rimando
Media and Public Information
ILO Country Office for the Philippines
Email