Salli Tophøj Rose, Medical Student.
Title of assignment: Description of Rubber Plantation workers’ working conditions.

• “In December 2012 I was in Ghana to examine the working conditions for rubber plantation workers in Ghana’s largest rubber plantation ‘GREL’. My focus was to involve the employees in finding the occupational hazards in their work. I interviewed plantation workers and managers from the company. In addition, I studied the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) system at the national level in Ghana by interviewing employees and physicians from ‘Ghana Health Service’. The final product of my study was a list of recommendations, which the company can use to improve the working conditions for the field workers. With our knowledge and the well-established OHS system in Denmark, we can teach people in third world countries, who need a proper OHS system to get decent working conditions for the population. I think that we carry this responsibility partly because 1) we are consumers of the products from third world countries industry and 2) because we find very poor working conditions for workers in many of these countries. Because of poverty, a job is a necessity of life to survive – despite of poor working conditions.“