Health and safety ensured for young people at work

European Safe Start Summit concludes successful health and safety campaign.

EU policymakers, social partners and leading safety and health experts met on 22nd March 2007 at the Euskalduna Conference Centre, Bilbao, Spain, to see how to ensure that young people have a safe and healthy start to their working lives.

Five hundred delegates heard that across Europe, 18 to 24-year-olds are at least 50 per cent more likely to be injured in the workplace than more experienced workers, and that behind the statistics are harrowing stories, of young people having to live with the consequences of accidents and damaged health for the rest of their lives, or dying when they had so much of their lives ahead of them.

The Safe Start Summit, jointly organised by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and the German Presidency of the European Union, was the culmination of the Safe Start campaign in 25 EU Member States as well as EFTA and candidate countries.

The Summit provided an opportunity to hear professionals, practitioners and participants speak about what has been achieved during the campaign, and how we ensure that we protect the workforce of tomorrow by taking action today.

According to Agency Director Jukka Takala, "There are some consistent and clear messages from the Safe Start campaign.

The most important message is the success of learning from real-life situations by involving vocational students and young workers in carrying out real risk assessments to identify hazards and to find solutions.

The solutions result in safer workplaces, and underline the importance of consulting young people about OSH because they have plenty to contribute.

Another interesting point to emerge is the importance and the success of learning from peers.

"From the forthcoming report on mainstreaming OSH into the education curricula, we see that there is much activity in Member States at primary and secondary level.

There are also many good examples form vocational education.

But activity is much less obvious in university education.

That is why the Agency has identified this for a follow-up project to be started later this year".

Safe Start featured a wide range of engaging quizzes, interactive learning materials and events, including good practice awards and a competition to find the European Young Film Maker of the Year on a health and safety theme.

The European Good Practice Awards 2006 were given to acknowledge the positive contributions made to promote the occupational safety and health of young people.

Eight winners received their awards including an awareness programme for risk prevention in schools in Spain, a passport to occupational safety skills in Finland, online and web-based initiatives in the UK, Poland and Denmark, a telephone helpline in Sweden, and a training programme for agricultural students in the Netherlands.

There were also 17 Commended examples from 14 different Member States.

Presentations were also made to three students from the Istituto Tecnico Industriale Statale "Nullo Baldini" in Ravenna, Italy for their short film "Il gioco della vita" ("The game of life") which was awarded the title of "Safe Start ...

European Young Film Maker of the Year" , and to three runners-up from Denmark, France and Poland.

The campaign culminated in the European Week for Safety and Health at Work in October 2006, with a range of awareness-raising activities being organised across Europe.

A Safe Start in Italy at Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome attracted over 5000 thousand young people, their parents, employers and teachers who tested their knowledge on safety quizzes, watched safety demonstrations and films, and viewed an exhibition of work through the ages.

In addition to the annual poster competition, the Agency's Polish focal point organised a "Safe Start" Education Picnic to reach pupils, students, employees and employers.

In Greece, posters were displayed throughout the public transport network - buses, metro, tram, train and also main stations - in Athens and Thessaloniki.

In the Netherlands, a conference on the Safe Start theme was followed by a second event on noise at work which was organised as a follow-up to the European Week in 2005.

A similar noise conference was organised in Germany during the Week.

Excellent websites were developed and launched in the Netherlands and Germany, and by many of the project organisers.

The Labour Inspectorate in Austria cooperated with schools across the country to make young people aware of OSH issues, and a counselling initiative devoted to the "supervision of young workers involved in dangerous work" was launched in companies.

The focal point in Lithuania participated in "Expo Aukstaitija 2006" for the first time and produced a booklet about risks and hazards on the farm in cooperation with the Labour Inspectorate of Poland.

The focal point in Finland organised a photography competition in 2006 on the theme of "Young people at work".

Prizes were awarded to four works by young photographers.

To communicate the campaign message in Denmark, students were given a short talk with a few figures and then a Danish rap group played the campaign song, a selection of their own numbers and some freestyle rapping.

Everywhere the animated video film "Napo in Safe Start" was a huge success.

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