ILO Sri Lanka and Maldives
Regional Director Joni
Simpson speaks at the event.
The pilot project of the series of programmes jointly managed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Board of Investment (BoI) with the aim of focusing on the mental health and well-being of the workers in the industrial sector, who provide immense labour for the upliftment of the Sri Lankan economy, was recently held in the Biyagama Investment Zone.
The project hopes to focus first on workers employed in the garment industry, who contribute the most labour to the country’s economy.
In addition to the garment industry, many methods of improving the mental health and well-being of employees are to be implemented under this programme for all other factories operating in this country.
ILO Sri Lanka and Maldives Regional Director Joni Simpson said that this programme was planned to identify the steps needed to improve the mental health of workers, setting up a formal mechanism to solve those problems, creating the necessary steps for the promotion of mental health and well-being and implementing them in practice.
For that purpose, raising the quality of professional counsellors as well as support staff in factories has been recognized as a major task. It is essential to raise the mental health of the employed and create an educational environment about mental health in the country in order to maintain it with quality. A wide opinion on this subject must be created among the people of the country. The ILO said that it is essential to create a relaxed environment for workers who are tired of monotonous work patterns to get rid of their mental monotony.
In the face of the challenges faced by Sri Lanka in the recent past such as the tsunami and the Covid pandemic, as well as the economic crisis faced by the whole world, it is essential to protect the mental health and survival of the workers as we are overcoming the challenges faced in protecting the industries of Sri Lanka and for that we have prepared many policy and professional plans, BoI Executive Director Engineer M.K.D. Lawrence said.
This programme is planned to be implemented in all Free Trade Zones spread across the island, he said further. For that purpose, arrangements have been made to operate a psychiatric centre in such a way that every investment zone is represented. In addition, a street theatre group was set up to raise awareness among workers and a printed publication was launched to educate workers and exchange information and knowledge.
ILO Sri Lanka and Maldives Regional Director Joni Simpson, BOI Executive Director M.K.D. Lawrence, BetterWork project head Keshav Murali Kanapathy and Sri Lanka Employers’ Federation consultant Sonali De Silva were present.
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