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In Uganda, FAO is working to improve occupational safety and health in the agricultural sector, in particular for young workers, and to prevent hazardous child labour in agriculture. As part of these efforts, FAO is raising awareness and building capacity to protect children and young workers from the direct exposure to pesticides used in farming.

To this purpose, throughout the course of 2017, over 1,700 copies of the Facilitator's visual guide: Protect children from pesticides! have been widely distributed across the country to help local extension workers engage with rural communities and reduce children's exposure to toxic pesticides. The Visual Guide is an easily accessible training tool designed to help agricultural extension workers, rural educators, labour inspectors, and producer organizations in teaching farmers and their families how to identify and minimize risks at home and on the farm. They also learn how to recognize and respond to signs of toxic exposure.

A particularly fruitful partnership was built with Gayaza High School. In particular, FAO Uganda supported the training of 12 students from the School on the health hazards posed by direct pesticide exposure, especially for children. Since then, the students have promoted and disseminated the Visual Guide during public events, such as the Annual School Farm Camp at Gayaza High School, the Agri-business Week, the Source of the Nile Agricultural and Trade Show, the National Youth Champions Competitions and the World Food Day. During these events, the students have distributed more than 200 copies of the Visual Guide and reached out to more than 400 people, including children, peer students, teachers and farmers, on protecting young workers and other children from pesticides.

In August 2017, during an awareness raising workshop on decent youth employment held in northern Uganda, FAO staff met Ms Gertrude Badaru, the district agricultural officer from the local government of the Arua district. During the workshop, Gertrude was introduced to the Visual Guide and fell in love with it. She acknowledged that unsafe use of pesticides was a big issue among the farming communities in the Arua district, adding that people were unaware of any danger.

As a result, Gertrude decided to utilize the weekly one-hour airtime allocated by the local FM radios for agricultural programmes to raise public awareness about the dangers of pesticide exposure. She received overwhelming feedback from listeners within and outside the Arua district, many of whom expressed shock on the potential dangers of pesticides. Some of them were upset for having unknowingly exposed their own children and themselves to hazards and asked the authorities to provide more information to the public. Given the positive public response, the local Agriculture Department, under Gertrude’s leadership, has conducted more radio talk shows on the topic, especially targeting schools and farming communities.

Gertrude recently attended a training on child labour prevention, organized by FAO and ILO, where she was provided with more technical information on how to prevent child labour in agriculture. She is now sharing her technical knowldge with fellow extension workers in Arua and continues with public awareness raising programmes on occupational safety and health for youth.