Health and safety at work is one of the areas where the EU has had the biggest impact – with a solid legal framework covering the maximum number of risks with the minimum number of regulations.

The European Commission’s new Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work 2021-2027 identifies key challenges and strategic objectives for health and safety at work and presents actions and instruments to address these in the coming years. It addresses the changing needs in workers’ protection brought by the digital and green transitions, new forms of work and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Held each year in October, the European Week for Safety and Health at Work is a highlight of every Healthy Workplaces Campaign, with hundreds of awareness-raising events taking place across the EU and beyond.

EU-OSHA is the European Union information agency for occupational safety and health. Their work contributes to the European Commission’s Strategic Framework for Safety and Health at work and other relevant EU strategies and programmes.

The European Commission supported a series of occupational health and safety (OHS) trainings at 13 vocational schools for a total of 1,078 students in the Turkish Cypriot community. The trainings, organised by the EU Infopoint in partnership with the Occupational Health and Safety Experts Association (ISG-BIR) and the Vocational Education Department, took place in May and June this year to highlight the importance of OHS principles for students who will be entering the workforce. The prize ceremony for the winning students of the OHS competition took place on Monday 25 October at Merkez LefkoŞa, to also mark the European Week for Safety & Health at Work.

The final year students who took part in these trainings received insight on topics such as why health and safety is important in workplaces, how health and safety at work could be achieved with specific examples on different workplaces, what various health and safety rules as well as implementation examples from various EU countries are, and why the EU is one of the safest places to work.

The aim of the trainings was to prepare students with knowledge about health and safety and to equip them with skills to identify workplace risks and prevent accidents as they prepare to enter the workforce. At the end of the training series, all the participating students were invited to participate in a quiz competition. In total, 78 students from 13 schools received the following prizes: a tablet, a power bank and an OHS pack delivered as part of the award ceremony.

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