About the Association
Registered name
The Paraffin Safety Association of Southern Africa
(association incorporated under sect. 21)
Reg no: 1997/018719/08
About the Paraffin Safety Association of Southern Africa
The Paraffin Safety Association was born out of a 1994 meeting between the petroleum industry and the then government-in-waiting, when ANC delegates raised paraffin poisoning as one of the issues concerning them about energy safety.
The South African Petroleum Industry Association (SAPIA) began to co-ordinate a response, focusing particularly on ingesting and poisoning. It pursued a number of initiatives including developing a childproof safety cap, but technical difficulties hampered progress. In frustration one of the members broker ranks and implemented its own programme, comprising an information campaign and the distribution of child-proof caps.
But industry dynamics and the scale of the task meant that the campaign gradually lost momentum and faltered, forcing the petroleum companies to reconsider a joint approach. This resulted in the formation of the Paraffin Safety Association of Southern Africa in 1996.
The Association initially concentrated on ingestion and poisoning, focusing particularly on the high incidence amongst children. Child health and safety education evolved to become a major aspect of its activity.
In 2003 it substantially expanded its activities to also address other negative consequences of domestic paraffin use, including burn injuries, township fires and the inhalation of toxic fumes. It set itself the goal of halving the number of paraffin related incidents by 2009.
To achieve this, it is working on three fronts:
- Providing training and educational material to paraffin users though a network of partnerships. These include NGOs community groups, emergency and healthcare workers, herbalists or any other group or individual who can effectively disseminate safety information. It has trained a corps of master trainers who will train and provide educational material in 11 official languages to these community partners.
- Working with industry, regulatory organisations and other bodies to set safety standards and lobbying government to have these made mandatory. Now that government has gazetted legislation on stove standards, the Paraffin Safety Association is focussing on packaging standards to ensure paraffin is sold in clearly marked, childproof containers.
- Compiling a knowledge base about the domestic use of paraffin and its consequences by conducting incidence surveillance, research, and collating and interpreting all available information.
South Africa is currently the only country in the world where an industry has funded a national paraffin safety programme.