Provision, maintenance and monitoring of Industrial safety is important for all places of work in a factory to make sure that the environment is safe for its employees. In Southern Sudan, industrialization is booming and even in its earliest stages, the main concern is the safety of its workers. James Ohisa visited Yanyyom water factory to find out about employees safety.
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Transcript
Sound of machines
Occupational health and safety is an interdisciplinary area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. Its major goal is to foster a safe working environment. In cases in which a worker gets injured or dies on the job, the employer is always responsible.
The industrial sector in Southern Sudan is in full boom, and more often than not the manual labour jobs can be dangerous if procedures are not respected. I went to visit Yanyyom water factory to look at its working conditions. I spoke to Rames Babu, the manager of this factory about safety conditions.
Clip 1- Ram
es Babu
"For the workers we are giving very good safety like we are wearing safety clothes or gum boots, safety shoes and we are having fire extinguishers to protect whenever it is necessary also we are having first aid box in our factory whenever our workers have small injury, we give the treatment if it is a big thing we go to the hospital to treat them. In industrial it is a must and is very important so you want to follow lots of things in the factory."
Southern Sudan is still in its early stages of industrialization. Factories are booming left and right and offering an increasing number of jobs. Many of those recruited have never worked in a factory before. In this situation safety awareness becomes of great concern; as the new recruits might not know its importance. Yanyyom is one such factory is Juba; it purifies water and in this process machines are involved. Some of these machines can be very dangerous to those operating them. Henry Simuez is a mechanical engineer in the factory.
Sound of a machine
Clip 2 - Henry Simuez 1
"This is called pad blowing machine, pit blowing machine manufacture bottles reform into bottles; now from the pad it will go into the filling machine in the blowing section we have compressors we have many things here even the chilling machine is where we chilled the process from the arrow then pack them into the final product. The heat from the heater now will kill whatever is like bacteria outside. The machines were shouting so much but now we reduced the sound of the machine we are programming now, it is in progress. We are going to bring what is called ear plugs for the operators to protect their ears."
Besides ear plugs for the workers to protect their ears; I asked Simuez about other protection kits.
Clip: 3 Henry Simuez 2
"Safety boots are there - only that when there is heat they don't want to put it on; sweat is coming in their foot they don't want. So better they clean first their feet then come inside then they work. There is no anything like a shock, so workers are sure of good progress."
In the industrial sector, employers are especially focused on production output; so they sometimes overlook safety regulations to increase their production and profit. Here at Yanyyom, wearing safety shoes is a must but not always practical according to Buga Dominic, a store keeper at Yanyyom Water factory.
Clip: 4 - Buga Dominic
"Here we don't use it very much just because of the hygiene so now we dealing with water. Where our hygiene is suppose to be okay now when we put on boots that means we are suppose to stay inside sometime we step outside we can not bring the dirt inside in the medical part of it its not allowed because we carry the dirt from outside in that is why we don't use it. The safety part we have here we have a trolley something called trolley you seen it."
Putting on safety shoes is not the only procedure to be followed; several other safety measures need to be implemented. All workers using heavy or dangerous machinery should be well trained as they are responsible for their own safety. They also need to be conscious of the risks involved. Imran Musambi is a machine operator at Yanyyom.
Clip: Imran Musambi
"I suppose to be when I am serious and when my minds are on machine; if my minds are not on machine; I will get some injuries that is why I am suppose to put on my minds on machine when I am working.
Yanyyom water factory is a factory which uses complex machinery but does not lead to any operational problems. The factory's engineer Maari Apal explains.
Clip: Maari Apal
"This processing mission is fully automatic, once we start no problem here everything is safe; no harmful thing."
Safety is not only associated with industries and factories, but with all types of work where human life can be at risk; it can be from building at an elevated altitude to working with complex machines such as wood mills. Evans Joshua is a machine operator at a wood mill in Malakia, Juba; he tells us how dangerous the machine he operates is to people.
Clip: Evans Joshua Modi
"This machine is one of the most dangerous machines so far, and whenever you are going to work on it you must have some safety percussions about it. First it has a Saw which is used for cutting and ripping timbers and this Saw is very dangerous. So, in order to work on it; you must to put on it a guard which is regards can not hurt somebody this Saw cuts off hands of people; you become unable to work for the rest of your life. Everyday all the workers should take one of the preconscious also. The other side which is drilling, before you start drilling you must make sure nuts and all the mills and everything tight properly that bit when it comes can hurt somebody directly it come enter you stomach and cause death which is very dangerous this one becomes one of the most dangerous machines and whenever somebody is working he should with precaution around."
The international Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) define occupational health as the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations. So, your life is first above all.
