Health and Safety at Work

After all the amazing capacity building work we saw at the Red Cross, the MMDA and Gawad Kalinga in the Philippines this week's health and safety training was a bit of an eye opener.

In a global context our environment is pretty safe (see Philippines; in the top 12 countries most prone to natural disasters) but the trainer managed to make people feel like they'd face death as they went to the next room to get the sandwiches. In comparison to people who go to work every day in a city of potholed pavements, less than controlled traffic and the ever present threat of earthquakes and flooding the risk to our health of tripping over a cable kind of seems insignificant. 

However the real contrast came in the attitude we're taught. In a hierarchical list of how to deal with a hazard training came around 6 or 7 (if I'd realised I was going to write this I'd have made more notes). This is despite it being clear that in order to carry out actions 1 to 5 or 6 someone would have to have been trained. But this was what the message seemed to be: other people are responsible for keeping you safe at work. What came across was that your employers responsibilities outweigh your own. 

When schools in the slums of Manila are teaching primary age children to spot the warning signs of TB and the Red Cross are training people how to deal with serious flooding and earthquake this doesn't seem right. 

Yes our employers might have a responsibility to make sure we don't come to harm at work but we do too and maybe the training should look more at how we can practically identify and prevent risk rather than looking at horror stories and reporting procedures. 

If we're getting down to details such as bad backs and poor posture why not suggest that the employee use a bit of initiative and raise their monitor with a book? Or if their chair isn't right use a cushion. For some the solution might not be that simple but it often is. 

Maybe we should look at teaching people common sense first? Or at least assume they'll be using it on a day to day basis. 

Sneak peek at the people taking our calls

Today with a select group of members from the Paving the Way team it was off to Bolton Council's customer service centre to have a look at how their CRM was working for them.

Having never been to the call centre before I was keen to see how it all worked and what happened when people were calling. Having only ever used a sales focused CRM it was great to see one designed around customer service in action.

Unfortunately they had no control over the calls coming in and the housing enquiries I was most interested in were few and far between the enquiries about bin collections. This did give me a change to see how the CRM linked with the knowledge base and the EDRMS and how the ideas we discuss in the Paving the Way meetings might work in practice.

If a caller wanted to report her bin not being emptied the staff were able to use her address to pull up the route she lived on and then the drivers notes for that route. These notes are produced by the collection teams and document any issues they have for example the road being blocked. Staff are then able to explain why it happened and what the caller can do.

It turned out that the service is getting even more sophisticated and the contact centre will soon have real time updates on the movements of the collection truck allowing them to provide even better customer service.

Seeing it all in action has given all of us loads of ideas about how we can make use of these systems in the future and we're all excited about what we can do in the future.

Thanks to Rachel for showing us round and to her and the staff for putting up with all our questions.

Manila Highlight Report / back to work

So back at work today and being asked what were the highlights from the past month and obviously it's difficult to say.

Just to clarify the trip was funded by the Rotary Foundation and intended to be an opportunity for us to experience our vocation in a different culture so we can bring back learning to our current jobs.

I have to say that when I left I was doubtful about how this would work. I wasn't convinced that a quick whirlwind 'sightseeing' tour of Filipino housing would give me any insight into what I do at home or give me a real understanding of their working environment. But whilst I don't claim to have a comprehensive understanding of their systems or the challenges they face I do feel like I've learnt a lot from the experience.

Firstly that I'm a terrible vegetarian. Faced with a choice of a month of refusing food and only eating rice and soy sauce I quickly embraced eating everything from bone marrow to balut. Balut for those that don't know is a hard boiled egg containing a duck foetus. I didn't eat any head.

But work wise it was more a matter of inspiration. Seeing how things can be done differently and work well.

Communications was given a real value by all the organisations we spoke to. It was recognised as being integral to employee engagement, customer engagement and raising the public profile of the organisation.

If I said to someone in the UK I was  going to see the Highways Agency I doubt the first thing they'd do would be to tell me how great the new Highways Agency app was or how their Twitter account had a great sense of humour. But that's exactly what happened when I said I was going to see the Filipino equivalent.

Customer engagement is something we place a lot of emphasis on. I didn't expect to see it when informal settlers were being moved off sites where they were in danger of losing their lives through fire or flood. Housing authorities gave people options about where to go, managed expectations and provided livelihood training to ensure that when they moved they weren't destitute. Through these initiatives good communications supported by effective strategies paved the way for stronger communities. In some schemes they also teach hope, teach people that they have the capacity to change their own lives.

Someone told me the Philippines is the country with the highest risk of natural disaster in the world. Perhaps the importance they place on comms comes in part from the reliance they have on these channels in case of emergency. Effective early warning and evacuation has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives in some situations.

Capacity building was raised by every organisation. It was recognised that the resource wouldn't be there to help everyone. So children are taught at school to spot TB symptoms, the Red Cross have mass first aid training programs and those who can't pay fines for misdameanours are made to attend disaster preparedness training.

Although I'm not in any way qualified to comment on our benefits system, how it works or its possible failings I believe we are lucky to have it. We're lucky that we don't have hundreds of thousands of people living below the poverty line ($1.25/day) and that people generally get help when they need it. We don't help ourselves sometimes because we know we don't have to.

We're not just dependent in terms of housing and benefit provision but the simple ability to rely on the emergency services and the NHS. The capacity building was inspirational, uplifting and positive but it's hard to see how to translate this to my work or that of Bolton at Home.

Some of the most successful capacity building schemes were around vocational training and providing a means to work to support the housing provision but in our communities this would be almost impossible to implement. For their communities participating in these schemes mean the difference between their family starving or not. Without that kind of incentive I don't know how successful they would be. Given the cost of living and the level of income required simply giving people in our communities sewing machines wouldn't work.

So it was pretty depressing returning to work. Meeting so many people who believed so wholeheartedly in their work makes you question the impact you have. But I also don't believe you should complain about something unless you have a solution which I'm not professing to have for the bigger issues. I do think I can maybe take some of this to encourage me work harder at what I do, at inspiring our staff and customers to communicate better and participate in conversations not only nationally but within their community.

In the midst of this little downer on the whole situation I saw on our social media a message encouraging people with business ideas to get in touch with an organisation offering funding to support them and that customers are beginning to really make use of Bolton at Home's social media channels.

And noone tried to feed me any baby animals.

Visit to the Red Cross

A visit to Quezon City’s Chapter of the Philippine Red Cross involved another serious conference setting and a presentation including all their volunteers dressed up in uniform. Kindly arranged by a Rotarian I met at one of the meetings a long presentation didn’t even begin to cover the amazing work they do in the Philippines.

I think sometimes we forget in the UK how spoilt we are. If we have an emergency, a fire or a car accident we call the emergency services and know they will come. In Manila that might not be the case. While the Chairmen wasn’t critical of the government provision of emergency service it was clear that these were not meeting the need and the Philippine Red Cross (PRC) were filling in the gap.

In addition to the services that are remarkably similar to the British Red Cross (BRC) in terms of support for the homeless, first aid training and family tracing to name a few, there is also an additional massive scope to their work in Manila. As well as the disaster relief, a vital service with the Philippines being the top most disaster prone country, there is massive work in capacity building for communities as well as filling in for the emergency services. If this wasn’t impressive enough the fact that there are almost no paid staff and this work is carried out by volunteers should do it.

Although they do have an emergency number and a call centre is manned 27/7 they are also called out by the Philippine National Police when they attend emergencies. But the main point of contact with the public is through their astonishingly comprehensive network of volunteers. Ambulances, dinghys and fire engines are donated by their supporters.

Recognising that the usual support systems we rely on in the UK might not be available or affordable to most of the population the PRC, like the MMDA and other organisations we’ve seen focus on training people to help themselves in an emergency. Thousands of members of the public are trained in not only first aid but disaster preparedness an water rescue and they have a great volunteer retention rate with the volunteers around the table averaging a seven year involvement.

Each chapter fundraises and is given a target and a budget. Quezon City’s is 65m pesos and they regularly exceed fundraising expectations. Each chapter has its own board of trustees and paid staff and the national PRC sits over the top with its own board. Interestingly this board includes 6 representatives appointed by the president perhaps representing the key role the organisation plays in the country. However the staff we spoke to were keen to assure that they didn’t see this as compromising the independence of the organisation as with them representing only 20% these six could not have a majority vote.

Following the visit to the Quezon City Chapter we were lucky enough to be able to visit the national headquarters where after the rest of the group made it clear my list of questions was too long the briefing session was cut short and we went for a look at their monitoring centre where everything from the levels of La Mesa Dam to the levels of deportees from Saba. All this work is done on simple excel spreadsheets regularly updated by staff.

To put into context the severity of the risk the PRC are facing an overflow at La Mesa Dam could kill two million people if evacuation is not quick enough. 

Like most organisations we’ve seen whilst we’re here this type of risk gives so much more significance to their work. With so few resources the work done here is stunning and I’ve written in previous posts really simple, practical economic solutions go so far to mitigating these risks.

Following my donations

It’s not often you get to know how the money you donate to charity is actually spent but today I was able to meet Jun Perez, President of SEED Finance, the Filipino partner of Lendwithcare. I’ve always thought the whole concept of Lendwithcare is fantastic and was keen to find out more about how the scheme actually operates on the ground.

I didn’t think when I emailed the general email address that they’d actually be able to arrange the visit but within a couple of days they’d put me in touch with Jun. It’s always a concern that when you learn more about an organisation you find out about the issues and problems but nothing was further from the truth with SEED Finance. At the risk that I’m beginning to sound like this is written by their PR company I can assure you that I’m fairly cynical generally and have this week been accused of cross examining the Chairmen of the Quezon City Red Cross in a manner that was apparently more like an interrogation than a Q&A session.

So at the SEED offices we were shown to the small meeting room and given a history of their involvement with CARE International. Jun was friendly, well informed and enthusiastic as well as keen to talk about their work. Photos on the wall have the caption ‘Micro no more’ underneath and a map has pins showing their coverage of the country.

For anyone else who lends with Lendwithcare I can assure you from what I’ve heard your money is being well spent. The individuals we see on the website are all members of co-operatives in the provinces and this is how their loans are administered. Jun made it clear that their loans were not the cheapest in the market but that they offer an extensive support service that extends beyond the loans themselves. This includes technical assistance and training so not only are the loans protected but a sustainable business is created. It seems like these measures are helping contribute to their 97% overall repayment rate, up 57%.

Loans are targeted in the most deprived regions and in places where mainstream banking is difficult to access. Practicalities such as having to get a boat to another island can mean entrepreneurs have to take time away from their business to carry out simple administrative tasks. Mobile banking has been utilised incredibly effectively to address this issue and people can now order supplies, pay utility bills and send money to kid overseas all through their mobile phone and the co-op money card. This is backed my Mastercard and linked to their phone account.

Having introduced this scheme in a fishing village a complaint was made by an entrepreneur that he was unable to access his money one weekend when the cash desk was closed and the ATM wasn’t working. SEED and the co-operative decided to address this by installing mobile card swipe machines in small businesses on the island. This meant there was no need for people to withdraw cash in order to buy materials for their business. Simple solutions like this and utilising the latest technology mean are great for making the lives of the beneficiaries easier and allowing them to maximise productivity.

Another example of this is how it allows the organisation itself to work more efficiently. At a conference a request was made for funds for a co-op to Jun. He text someone in the office, they made the necessary approvals and the money was available in around 2 hours.

The governance of the organisation reflects the client focus and on the Executive Committee two out of the five members represent clients. There is regular dialogue with area, regional and national conferences to share ideas and best practice.

One of the clever engagement tools used by Lendwithcare is the updates from the entrepreneurs. Being of a sceptical nature I’m not sure I quite believed before that these were so accurate as to be about your money. Having heard about their systems and the fact that each beneficiary is visited monthly I’ll now be much more interested in these updates.

Currently only 5% of their income is from individuals with the majority of investment coming from companies. I know after visiting SEED I’ll be happy to put more money in and be confident it’s being well spent.

Printing, waste management and kids. Just another day at the office

Our final ‘proper’ day starts with a trip to a publishing company owned by one of the members of our host club and an introduction to their integrated approach from printing the books to training the teachers. The visit included our shortest drive yet – the previous record was set driving across the street – maybe 70 yards. This was into the van, out of the gate and into the gate next door. To the same building.

Next in true  varied form it was off to the city dump for some briefings.

Its easy to think that waste management might not be that interesting but as with all these visits once someone starts talking we suddenly become fascinated with the talk. Work on the site began after 250 people were killed in trash slide 11 years ago. The city council got involved and engineering solutions were put in place to ensure this wouldn’t be repeated. As with every initiative here the work being carried out is founded on extreme necessity and the risk of loss of human life giving each project an urgency that might not be found elsewhere.

Despite this there are ambitious plans for the future taking the project forward and including incorporating the government tree planting programme, an eco park and a housing scheme.

A large proportion of the waste is processed by hand with 490 trucks a day coming into the plant from around Quezon City. 8 groups of 75 scavengers  go through the waste sorting for reusable or recyclable materials. The workers are not paid and instead split the income from the materials that are sold from their work.

A savings scheme endorsed by the government is a rack of tiny piggy banks where once a week workers put in 15 pesos or more if they can afford.

Another income generator is the refuse derived fuel produced from the organic waste. James from Harrogate showed us round the plant in which the material is autosegmented before the metal is manually picked out. Organic waste is then baled and sold as fuel for use in place of fossil fuels. When James arrived in August last year the plant was non existent and has been designed, built and made operational in this time in an indication of how quickly things move here.

Similarly the Biogas project began 2008 and now has 90 gas wells over the site producing electricity for 3500 families and generating income for the city.

Although this is a government project there is still a CSR angle. This covers all the key areas and is delivered in partnership with their private sector partner. As with most we’ve seen so far there is a holistic approach covering education, livelihoods, housing and disaster management as well as healthcare and nutrition through the Patayas Poverty Alleviation Foundation.  

Welding courses are offered with employment opportunities with the private secor partner after completion and ‘jumpers’, the kids that climb onto rubbish trucks looking for things to sell have been organised into a football team to get them off the streets.

Another massive lunch and then onto a feeding programme (ironically) where the Rotary club hosting us have created a community corps with resident to create a partnership and feed the local children. Having picked up some tricks from the Aussies we took along sweets, pens, chalk and bubbles and were mobbed by the children once they realised what we had. After some awkward conversation where I tried miming to the kids and writing and drawing in chalk on the pavement they revealed they actually spoke perfect English and I think were laughing at me a little. Or a lot. Basically at four they can speak two languages and I couldn’t even remember the Tagalog word for pretty. 

Leadership skills and a month to remember

I’m not sure how it comes across in the blog but as well as being fantastic this trip has been bizarre. Simple things like staying in other people’s homes, spending massive amounts of time with team mates you’ve just met and having your photo taken about 100 times a day all contribute to this. It’s been great having the Aussie team around and meeting people here who’ve also done GSE and understand how intense it is.

The Australian team is on a slightly different programme and are called a Vocational Training Team rather than a Group Study Exchange team. They are all teachers and have had a more vocational focus including delivering workshops and sharing knowledge as well as the cultural aspects. It’s been really interesting to get to know them and see how they work as a team under their team leader Jacqui.

I seem to remember that part of this trip was about developing as leaders and watching how Jacqui has led their team has been really interesting. Being a bit bossy and a bit of a control freak it’s been great to observe such good leadership. From my perspective Jacqui has completely got the difference between leading a team and managing one. The team as a whole have a fantastic relationship and are close with them providing support to her as well as vice versa. It seems that respect built up between her and the team members has provided a great base for her to be able to lead effectively.

It would be easy in this stressful and alien situation to be issuing orders to get the team to do things but Jacqui has a great knack for just giving people the option to do the right thing. For example on the way up to Baguio not all the car seats had seatbelts as people often don’t bother with them here. Instead of telling her team they had to buckle up she just quietly arranged for them to get seats with belts available so they had the option should they want to.

Another example of the respect afforded to her team members is in her assumption that they will do the right thing. In Boracay we were on a night out and Kerrin went to let her know she was off to find a ‘comfort room’. Rather than lecturing her about not going off on her own or telling her to take someone with her she assumed that Kerrin would already have thought of this and that because I was standing nearby I’d be going with her (which I was).

There is some assumption on this trip that on our return we might join Rotary and some people we’ve had contact with have made us feel obliged to do so. Although clearly committed to Rotary and their work Jacqui has reassured us that this is not the aim of the trip and we shouldn’t feel under any pressure. She also allowed us and her own team space to not have to take Rotary so seriously even extending to the slightly drunken ‘Rotary meeting’ held on the beach in the dark complete with fake bell ‘dinging’ the meeting to order.

On this trip we are chaperoned pretty much 27/7 and it would be tempting as team leader to treat us like children on a school trip. Jacqui’s leadership is so effective in keeping her team on track and ultimately safe and I hope I can take back what I’ve learned from her and apply it at home.