What is WIN?

The WIN-ASIA website presents latest advances in the Work Improvement Network Asia. The network partners comprise occupational safety and health and work improvement institutions in Asian countries that are collaborating for developing action-oriented programs. A special emphasis of these programs is placed on training in practical work improvements in small enterprises and agriculture.

The website is aimed at sharing these advances with all those who undertake training and field practice activities for different social groups in the Asian region. The common experiences of the network partners demonstrate that participatory action-oriented training can result in sustainable work improvements. It is usually seen that these improvements, including many low-cost improvements, cover multiple technical areas such as materials handling, workstation design, physical environment, welfare facilities, work organization and living conditions. These improvements clearly help reduce occupational risks and enhance productivity. The experiences also confirm the importance of building on local practice through serial group work. Thus, training packages for small enterprises and farmers have been developed including local good examples, action checklists listing practicable low-cost improvements, manuals with guidance on how to implement such improvements as well as group work methods. The exchange of these training packages through this website will be particularly useful.

The collaboration between the network partners is growing steadily. The main WIN-ASIA partners include the Institute for Science of Labour in Kawasaki, Tokyo Occupational Safety and Health Center, Center for Occupational Health and Environment in Can Tho, Mahidol University Occupational Safety and Health Department in Bangkok and a number of occupational safety and health and work improvement institutions in these and other countries. Collaboration also grows with the Japan International Labour Foundation. The network activities include: (a) WISE (Work Improvement in Small Enterprises) projects using the methodology developed by the ILO; (b) WIND (Work Improvement in Neighbourhood Development) activities for agriculture originating from Vietnam; (c) POSITIVE (Participation Oriented Safety Improvement by Trade-union Initiative) programs by trade unions in several countries; and (d) participatory training for different social groups such as WISH (Work Improvement for Safe Home) and the annual Mekong Delta program.

This website is also associated with the network TROHI (Towards Regional Cooperation in Occupational Health Initiative) that was launched at the International Congress of Occupational Health in Singapore in 2000. TROHI members are from Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Indian Association of Occupational Health, Institute for Science of Labour, Malaysian Medical Association, University of Otago, Philippine College of Occupational Health, Sri Lanka Department of Labour, Thailand Ministry of Public Health, Vietnam National Institute of Labour Protection and Australian Faculty of Occupational Medicine. This website contributes to the TROHI activities by presenting low-cost improvements reducing occupational health risks.

Our recent experiences in participatory approaches point to the need to take grass-roots action aimed at many low-cost improvements learning from local good practices and making full use of group work tools. The WIN-ASIA network hopes to serve as a catalyst to enhance and accelerate the grass-roots initiative in this direction.

Kazutaka Kogi

Contact for WIN-ASIA:
Dr. Ton That Khai, WIN-ASIA web master <cpo@hcm.vnn.vn>.