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A four day training period was conducted for workers from UETCL, Uganda. There were a total of four candidates attending the class, each from a very different background. Brenda was from the HR department, George was from the environmental department, Barbara was from the workers social department and Jonathan was from the engineering department. Each of them well qualified in their fields. The challenge here was to create a common course which will make it easy for everyone to understand. The company is into electrical transmission systems, so the main focus here will be towards safety management systems, environmental safety, construction safety and electrical safety. The course was tailor made to suit this purpose.

Day 1:

After a 16hr long flight the previous day and dealing with a 4hrs time difference candidates were tired but very eager to attend the session. The session kicked off with a basic introduction of the tutor and the candidates. Once we all got to know each other we started the course with the basics of health and safety management. The candidates were very responsive and challenged every topic. Safety was a new frontier for these students but that dint stop them from exploring it. The first session topic was Introduction to health and safety. Then after a sumptuous meal we moved on to the afternoon session where we discussed about the safe systems of work with reference to transmission systems. The day came to an end after we had a very interesting conversation about SSoW on site with respect to health and the candidates wanted to know how to deal with issues with respect to blood borne viruses mainly HIV/AIDS as Africa has one of the highest rise in people affected by AIDS. With this we concluded the first day.

Day 2:

Once we have caught up with what we studied the previous day we started the next topic on risk assessment. Candidates were taught about the practical application of risk assessment and the implications that it would have on health and safety if implemented. To intrigue the minds of the candidates a lively discussion on the difference between incidents, accidents and near miss was taken and by the end of it was made sure of the difference. After lunch everyone was encouraged to share any real life accident or incident and do a risk assessment on the same. To their astonishment they found that they could have avoided an entire incident by just doing a simple risk assessment.

Day 3:

On the third day we discussed the topics relating to site health management. The most important thing for a worker is his good health which allows him to work with full efficiency and in turn will reflect on the performance of the worker in the company, so various topics like health surveillance, communicable diseases, effects of chemicals, etc… were discussed under this topic. During the second half we discussed about the safety in transmission systems. As the company’s profile is erecting transmission lines in Uganda. Most of the concepts came as a surprise to the candidates and every concept was supported by a video to help them understand the topic better.

Day 4:

Today’s topic was a continuation of what we had seen yesterday it was on safety in substations. Here we discussed about the various equipment used in a substation along with the hazards, risk and the consequences due to the risk. After that we saw the various controls to be implemented in order to reduce the amount of risk in the work place. During class while discussing the topic of transmission oil and its risk in the work place, the candidates bought up an interesting incident where in Uganda people used to steal the transmission oil in order to cook food with them, they wanted to know if it would cause serious consequences. Inorder to explain this we had a debate about the difference between poison substance and a toxic substance. This also opened the doors to various other chemicals used on the site. Once all doubts were cleared we decided to call it a day.

Day 5:

It was the last day of our training session and candidates had a grumpy look in the morning and the wanted to extend the training session for a couple more days. To conclude the session the final topic was construction safety. Every site no matter the domain has some construction work taking place. For these candidates it is erecting of transmission lines hence this was a critical topic for them. We discussed about the various hazards related to construction such as work at height, cranes, fork lift trucks, electrical safety on site, uses of control measures. The candidates had a doubt when I stated that PPEs have to be a secondary control and not our primary. Well in fact all around the world people choose it as the only option so at the end of a healthy conversation it was made very clear how by careful explanation and by analyzing incident videos on site hence inducing the skills of observation and perception, two very important qualities any safety officers must have.

After the session was completed we had a casual interaction about other general topics, the candidates did request that we ask their company to permit them to attend a more comprehensive course on OHSM training. A verbal and written feedback from the students were collected and the candidates were felicitated by CADD for undertaking the training program. With this we had to bid our good byes.

My assessment of the candidates was that they had very high potential in HSE and combined with their communication skills and thirst for more knowledge coupled with proper training the company would be able to see a difference in the worker if the materials learnt in the training were to be implemented. Green world would like to personally thank CADD for the opportunity to conduct this training and their kind hospitality. We would also like to thank NCC for their kind cooperation and coordination of the training sessions. This has truly been a mutual learning experience for the both of us.