Safety In Sierra Leone

Your first impressions when you see a building site in Sierra Leone might be that of danger: rickety scaffolding, no PPE (personal protective equipment) and poor quality materials. I'll defend these one by one and hopefully demonstrate that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and stereotypes should not always be believed, especially in this case. As I've been working on site for 2 weeks now, I've come to realise that the sites here are actually very safe, with very few accidents. They are perhaps safer than some sites in the UK.

Firstly, rickety scaffolding and workers climbing like children in a playground. I'm yet to properly chat to all of the men building these 4 storey climbing frames, but generally their approach to their own and others personal safety is simple:

Safety in the mind

I used to think workers on sites in developing countries accepted a higher level of risk, suffered more accidents, and would generally be happier to put themselves at risk, more so than their colleagues on a UK site. So far my first impression is that these preconceptions were wrong.

A huge difference between UK sites and SL is the obvious lack of ppe. They realise that if they fall off, or are injured , they will not be able to work. Full stop. This means that they always consider their own safety before and during any task. Take working near an edge, for example. Here, there is rarely any edge protection, no guard bars to stop people falling off; yet they happily work at height on the edge of a slab in a multi storey building. The reason they don't fall off? Simple. They take care and put their own safety first, without relying on guard rails, crash mats, and PPE. Put simply, they are careful.

Somehow, when you are wearing PPE, or walking on a site equipped with the statutory PPE, you feel safer, even though the risks are still there. You somehow feel invulnerable to any dangers, so long as you're wearing your trusty yellow hi vis jacket.

I'm reminded of a bicycle journey through London on my way to work one morning. Half asleep, I had forgotten to take my bike helmet, but continued on through the morning rush hour anyway. I suddenly became much more aware of my surroundings, on a journey that I had done many times before, admittedly normally half asleep. in a way, that was probably the safest I had ever been on a bike. Normally, when you're wearing a helmet, you do feel semi-invulnerable. Now I'm not for one second saying that you shouldn't wear a helmet (or PPE), as they obviously help SHOULD you have an accident, but to be conscious of your surroundings, knowing that there is no protection, made me much safer in my own mind.

It is fascinating to compare the health and safety culture here in Sierra Leone to the almost 'nanny state' of enforced PPE without actually forcing people to be safe themselves. In the UK, if you fall off scaffolding, there are so many layers of protection, psychologically there is little incentive to take care of yourself on site. There are guard bars, safety nets, sometimes crash mats to ensure even the laziest of workers can never hurt themselves, no matter how hard they try. Even if you do hurt yourself, you can always claim on insurance, or sue your employer.

Everyone on site in Sierra Leone realises that you only have one pair of eyes, arms, etc, and so they take infinite care of themselves, as there is no safety net, no crash barrier to protect them.

The reason they look comfortable prancing around scaffolding? Because they are careful, it's as simple as that.