Informal work
Safety for farmers, fishers, miners, builders, and waste workers.
Focus — Health & Community Well-Being — Occupational health
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
IDEAS WE SUPPORT.
World Seed Fund supports people whose ideas improve safety and health in daily work for the workers exposed to the hazard.
Why this area
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
IN CONTEXT.
Most of the world works informally, where safety is unenforced. Ideas qualify when they fit the trade as it is practised, not as regulation imagines it.
Scope of the area
WHAT THIS AREA
INCLUDES.
Illustrations of scope, not a fixed list. If your idea belongs here but is not described below, introduce it anyway.
Hazard reduction
Dust, chemicals, heat, machinery, and load.
Protective practice
Equipment and method workers will actually adopt.
Recognition
Recording injury and illness that goes uncounted.
Criteria to qualify
WHAT A OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
IDEA MUST SHOW.
All five criteria apply. An idea does not need to be complete or proven — it needs to be specific enough that we can judge it, and grounded enough that a next step is possible.
A defined problem, in a defined place
We need to understand exactly who is affected, where, and how they cope today. General statements about a global challenge are not enough to qualify.
- Names the place, community, or system where safety and health in daily work fall short.
- States the situation today in plain terms — injuries, exposure levels, adoption of the practice, or days lost.
- Explains what the workers exposed to the hazard do now, and what it costs them.
Human insight behind the idea
The idea should come from knowledge of the situation — technical, scientific, operational, cultural, or lived — rather than from an assumption about it.
- Draws on direct knowledge of safety and health in daily work in that place.
- Accounts for why earlier occupational safety campaigns did not hold here.
- Was shaped with the workers exposed to the hazard, not only for them.
A credible next step
There must be a specific thing that can be attempted next, at a scale that can be observed honestly, with a stated way of judging whether it worked.
- A defined pilot with a stated size — workers, worksites, or a trade group.
- A stated measure of success — injuries, exposure levels, adoption of the practice, or days lost.
- A timeframe within which the result can be judged honestly.
Value for people and place
The benefit should be meaningful to the community or system the idea serves, and describable in terms they would recognise.
- Improves safety, earning capacity, and long-term health for the workers exposed to the hazard.
- The benefit is described in words the community itself would use.
- Does not shift cost, risk, or harm onto neighbouring people or systems.
A path to keep working
Ideas qualify when someone can plausibly own, operate, fund, and repair the result after the first phase of support ends.
- A named trade association, cooperative, or employer able to carry the work after the first phase.
- Running costs, materials, and skills obtainable near the work.
- Ownership, permission, or agreement that lets the work continue.
Evidence & boundaries
WHAT HELPS,
AND WHAT DOES NOT.
Evidence can be modest. A careful account of a small trial is worth more than a projection.
Evidence we look for
- Any observation, record, or measurement of safety and health in daily work in that place.
- Costs, materials, or time recorded from a small trial, however modest.
- Notes, letters, or agreements from the workers exposed to the hazard or the trade association, cooperative, or employer.
Usually outside this area
- Broad proposals about occupational health with no named place and no named people.
- Equipment or funding requests with no operator and no running cost.
- Work that transfers cost, risk, or harm to neighbouring people or systems.
Submit an idea
INTRODUCE YOUR
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH IDEA.
There is no application window and no required format. Answer these four questions in your own words and we will read them.
Who is affected, where, and how do they manage today?
What do you know about safety and health in daily work that others working on it may not?
What could you attempt next, and how would you judge whether it worked?
Who continues the work afterwards, and what keeps it running?
Human potential is everywhere. Opportunity should be too.