Think Globally – Act Locally: The Developing World Outreach Initiative (DWOI) of the AIHA Northern California Section
By Richard Hirsh and David Kernazitskas
In early 2006, the AIHA Northern California Section (NCS) began an effort to leverage local IH resources to address developing world IH issues in a tangible way. The Initiative began when Richard Hirsh, then Local Section president, David Zalk, a past-president of the International Occupational Health Association, and Garrett Brown, Cal-OSHA compliance officer and the coordinator of the Maquiladora Health & Safety Support Network, met together and discussed ways to address the lack of adequate industrial hygiene resources for workers and health and safety professionals in developing countries The plan that emerged centered on connecting the technical expertise and human resources of the Local Section with those who need them in the developing world.
In order to move forward with this initiative, we needed to identify a critical mass of Local Section volunteers who would be willing to serve on a newly formed Developing World Outreach Initiative (DWOI) to identify the needs for assistance and to act as a liaison to link local resources with needs. The target audience for the DWOI’s activities is defined as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – principally occupational safety and health associations; universities; and worker and community-based organizations – which do not have the resources and connections that government agencies and employers enjoy even in the developing world. The goal of the DWOI committee is to build the capacity of NGOs in developing countries through mobilizing the resources of the Local Section to provide information, technical assistance, educational materials, and financial support for small OHS projects to be conducted by the local NGOs.
Given the technical expertise, resources and professional connections we have amongst our Local Section membership – who are active in AIHA, IOHA, ACGIH, NIOSH, WHO, UC Berkeley, among other institutions and their own employers, we believe there is a real opportunity as well as a responsibility to establish an outreach mechanism by which we can participate in improving the practice of industrial hygiene in the developing world. During the past two years, more than two dozen like-minded Local Section members have become active participants in the DWOI.
The first meeting of the AIHA-NCS Developing World Outreach Initiative (DWOI) was held at the Cal-OSHA Offices, in Oakland, CA on March 28th, 2006. Fourteen Local Section members attended the meeting. It was apparent that we had tapped a nerve within the Local Section that generated a renewed enthusiasm and volunteerism within the ranks. The meeting included a general discussion of the initiative, the types of assistance to be considered, the potential recipients, the vehicles for delivery, and the boundaries of this project. We knew that our efforts needed to focus on manageable, realistic projects given the limited resources available. The newly formed group would have to identify its own leader and the project(s) would need to be determined by the group. Natalia Varshavsky, an industrial hygienist working for Chevron, volunteered to chair the initiative and has remained in that post ever since.
The DWOI identified the types of groups we might interface with and held an open discussion to brainstorm ideas, expectations, and expertise. We then formed two sub-committees to administer: 1) a survey of the Local Section membership to identify an inventory of available resources (monetary donations, reference texts, training modules, equipment, subject matter expertise, languages, travel capabilities, international links to universities, associations, NGOs, etc.) and 2) an external survey of potential recipients on their needs (e.g. wish lists) in which we contacted a wide array of organizations, associations and institutions in the developing world known to be actively interested in OHS issues. A letter was drafted and sent to these organizations and the outreach subcommittee assigned each volunteer member 3-4 organizations to contact. This resulted in identifying contacts to 44 organizations and universities which provided wish lists which we could then match to internal resources.
Membership Survey
Fifty-two responses were received from the internal on-line survey of the AIHA-NCS membership, and converted to an Access® database. The survey identified key areas of interest including: training/coaching, document development, editing, translation, and interest in supporting a particular country. It also identified subject matter expertise on a wide range of topics that could be leveraged at a later date depending on the projects identified. We found out we had language resources in Spanish and Mandarin. Twenty members indicated they could visit with local specialists during international travel to make presentations, conduct training, provide technical assistance, or provide document reviews. Several members indicated they were affiliated with international organizations. Others volunteered to donate reference texts and training modules on a variety of IH topics. Even more indicated they were willing to make monetary donations to this effort.
Fundraising
By November 2006, we decided to initiate our first fundraiser. We had received an anonymous matching funds grant for up to $1,000 which depended on initial donations from Local Section members. The DWOI decided to raise money for the Worldwide Outreach Fund of the Foundation for Occupational Health and Safety (FOHS) (http://www.fohs.org/WOPrgm.htm) which paralleled our own efforts. This program is dedicated to supporting educational needs in developing countries and toward furthering goals of the WHO Collaborating Centers for Occupational Health's 2006-2010 Work Plan. The advantage to AIHA-NCS members of donating to FOHS is that all donations are tax-deductible.
A total of $2660 was raised including the matching funds. $2000 was donated to the Worldwide Outreach Fund and $660 would be used to fund other DWOI activities. The money donated by AIHA-NCS members to FOHS was eventually given to the Malaysian Industrial Hygiene Association, to provide printed materials to the attendees at the organization’s Indoor Air Quality workshops.
Partnerships
Also in November 2006, the DWOI formed a Liaison Committee and invited the Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV) to partner with the NCS Local Section for a variety of possible activities in Asia. The ANROAV is a network of 23 grassroots OHS organizations in 12 Asian countries which provide various types of H&S assistance to local, grassroots groups in Asia. The partnership is being facilitated by the Asian Monitor Resource Center (AMRC), which has a full-time OHS officer on staff. AMRC will alert the Local Section of health and safety projects in which we might be able to assist. Several areas of collaboration between ANROAV member organizations and the DWOI committee have been identified and are already in motion:
- A DWOI committee member attended the ANROAV annual conference in Hong Kong in August 2007;
- DWOI committee members will work with the Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (COEH) at UC Berkeley to provide OHS students with short-term, on-site workplace health and safety projects with ANROAV member organizations. These project proposals would be funded through the COEH Student Award Program;
- DWOI committee members will coordinate with Local Section members who regularly travel to Asia for business to contact ANROAV member organizations to provide “mini-workshops” or on-site technical assistance by the Local Section members while they are in-country;
- DWOI committee members will provide information, technical assistance and mentoring from Northern California (via email) on specific issues or hazards being addressed by ANROAV member groups;
- DWOI committee members will raise money for specific, small (under $300) OHS projects conducted in Asia by ANROAV member organizations.
Book and Equipment Donations
In early 2007, we also formed a Request & Response Committee to provide books and equipment to NGOs in the developing world who have requested assistance. This committee began collecting and cataloging donated reference materials. Several hundred key reference books and other teaching materials (including IH equipment) has been collected and cataloged. Local NGOs in the developing world, especially universities in Africa, are being offered their pick of the donated materials and the DWOI committee has raised more than $850 to ship the materials. At the time of this writing, 60 books have been requested by the University of Gazira, in Sudan, the University of Calabar, in Nigeria, and the Tanzania Occupational Health Service, in Tanzania. The DWOI has submitted a proposal to the AIHA Volunteer Group for financial resources to help with the cost of future book shipments, and other DWOI activities.
Publicity and Fundraising
A Publicity & Fundraising Committee was formed in early 2007 to organize a Local Section dinner meeting highlighting the work of the DWOI and other international occupational health activities, as well as write bi-monthly articles for the NCS Monitor newsletter on our activities and accomplishments. The March 2007 dinner meeting was organized around the DWOI activities and was also our annual Student’s Night where NCS Local Section awards are given to deserving students. Twenty-one students were among the 65 attendees. The enthusiasm over the international theme of the evening was palpable. Dinner table centerpieces with flags of the world as well as the creation of country cards with global occupational health statistics for each place setting made colorful additions to the evening. The focus of the presentations included an overview of the Developing World Outreach Initiative (DWOI) and other global OHS initiatives.
We first heard from Brian Daly, a Past Chair of the AIHA International Affairs Committee (IAC) and member of the 2005-2007 International Task Force. Through the ongoing activities of the IAC, ambassadorships, mentoring programs, educational programs, workshops, and other AIHA liaison activities have been established in several nations lacking in industrial hygiene leadership. Colleen Thornton, a DWOI member, gave an overview of the DWOI history, its goals, recent achievements and future outreach efforts. Garrett Brown spoke about the Local Section’s new partnership with ANROAV and AMRC. Pam Tau Lee, the evening’s final speaker, from the UC Berkeley’s Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, Labor Occupational Health Program, spoke on her work in the areas of popular education and community based participatory research.
The work of the DWOI was also presented to the AIHA International Affairs Committee at their annual meeting during the 2007 AIHCE in Philadelphia. A flyer was developed to provide a summary of DWOI activities which could be disseminated at future speaking events. A DWOI representative also is scheduled to speak at the California Industrial Hygiene Conference in December 2007.
Website Resources Tools Page
The DWOI Resources & Website Committee was formed in the spring to update and maintain the informational resources available on the award winning NCS Local Section’s website to in order to make available links to OHS websites; topic-specific technical information of key hazards in the developing world; examples of written safety programs; and Local Section members’ training curriculum, lecture outlines and power point presentations on a variety of OHS topics.
Challenge to Other Interested AIHA Local Sections
One key goal of the DWOI is to encourage other AIHA local sections around the country to establish similar committees in order to expand the expertise and resources available to organizations in the developing world from AIHA members throughout North America. The Northern California Section would be delighted to coordinate the work of its DWOI Committee with that of similar committees in other local sections.
The contact information for key AIHA-NCS DWOI committee members is as follows: