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Once again I seem to be focusing on the young people of the Wairarapa, but I'm sure you'll agree with me that our children are our future.
So it's great that 17 Wairarapa early childhood education services received almost $24,000 this week as part of a national $3.3 million funding move designed to ensure all children can access education before they get to school.
The funding targets services in low socio-economic communities, isolated areas, or services that are delivering education in a language and culture other than English.
Some of the local centres to benefit from this funding include Dannevirke Central Kindergarten, Porangahau Playcentre and eight kohanga reo. It is now agreed that early childhood education makes a significant and critical difference to the way children develop and go on to learn throughout their lives.
And we know there are significant barriers that have prevented many of our tamariki from accessing early childhood education. This has in turn affected their further education, gaining decent qualifications and later achieving worthwhile jobs.
This funding will hopefully increase the number of tamariki enrolled in early childhood education, thus giving them a great start in life.
Many of you who are part of the volunteer sector have been asking how the coverage of volunteers in the new Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill will affect them.
Most Wairarapa volunteers and their employers do not need to be over concerned as the proposed coverage of volunteers applies only in the following circumstances:
- where the volunteer is involved in a work activity, i.e. working for an employer or self-employed person; and
- where the work of the volunteer produces financial gain for the employer or self-employed person. Collecting donations and selling raffle tickets are specifically excluded.
In these circumstances, the obligations on employers and self-employer persons are limited to the core obligations under the current Act which include:
- the general duty of employers to take all practicable steps to provide a safe working environment (sections 6-12);
- the duty of employees (and this will be amended by the Bill to include covered volunteers) to take all practicable steps to ensure their own safety and the safety of others while at work (section 19); and
- the duty of employers to notify OSH of serious harm accidents (section 25).
In the event that a volunteer is harmed or causes serious harm at work, an OSH prosecution results, and the Court imposes a fine upon the employer or self-employed person - the court takes into account a range of factors, including the ability of the offender to pay.
It is not only workplace injuries that are preventable as is shown with this week's release of the draft New Zealand Injury Prevention Strategy.
I find it concerning that in the Wairarapa 375 people are hospitalised each year and 15 people die because of injuries when most injuries and their consequences could have been prevented.
Nationally 1600 people die every year as a result of injuries and 42,000 end up hurt and in hospital. The aim of the new strategy is to prevent injuries and develop a safety culture in New Zealand.
Injuries take a huge toll on individuals, whanau, families and communities. They mess up people's lives, careers and relationships, and the combined social and economic costs throughout the country are estimated at up to $7 billion a year!
The strategy means there will now be a nationwide system for government agencies, non-government organisations, communities and individuals to work together for greater safety from injuries.
Parents, caregivers, managers, workers, landlords, sports participants and road users can all use this strategy to prevent injury.
Six priority areas account for at least 80 per cent of all injury deaths and serious injuries in New Zealand: motor vehicle traffic crashes, suicide and deliberate attempts at self-harm, falls, workplace injuries and disease, assault, and drowning or near-drowning.
Workshops will be held for the greater Wellington region during November and December (see below) and the government is asking for written comment on the strategy to be submitted by 31 January 2003.
The draft New Zealand Injury Prevention Strategy is available at: http://www.nzips.govt.nz If you want to join in a workshop please Freephone 0508 4NZIPS (0508 4 69477); or email nzips@acc.co.nz advising which workshop (date and location) you will attend.
I was pleased to hear it rained a bit while I was away in Spain (and not only on the plains!) - good news for our farmers. Everything seems so green here compared with the dry Spanish countryside. It's great to be back!
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