Honouring Global Asbestos Activist Éric Jonckheere of Belgium
Éric Jonckheere of Belgium
8:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)
12:00 UTC | 2:00 p.m. CEST
Presenter information will be announced soon!
Background on Éric Jonckheere
Éric and his family endured an unimaginable degree of suffering caused by asbestos. Their story began in a small company town in Belgium, where Éric’s father was the manager of an Eternit asbestos cement factory. A significant proportion of the asbestos used there came from Canada. Eventually, Éric’s father, mother and two of his brothers died from mesothelioma. Tragically, Éric himself joined them on December 13, 2024, after a tenacious struggle against the relentless cancer that began three years earlier. One of Éric’s remaining brothers has also recently been diagnosed with mesothelioma.
Éric decided years ago that he would not rest until he helped win justice for asbestos victims and achieved a global ban on asbestos. He made a magnificent contribution to that struggle. He was a charismatic, bigger than life figure who won people over with charm and humour as much as by statistics and policy arguments. He played a major role in founding and leading the Belgian asbestos victims’ group ABEVA, worked with film-maker Danial Lambo on a powerful documentary about the global asbestos industry and wrote a book about his family’s experience with that industry.
For more background on Éric Jonckheere, click HERE
Occupational Heat Background on the Saeed Awan lecture:
As head of the Center for Improvement of Working Conditions and Environment (CIWCE) in Lahore Pakistan from 1988 until his work-related death in 2014 Saeed Awan reached out to workers in a wide range of local industries: makers of palm mats, soccer balls, surgical instruments, leather goods, and hand-made brick; stone crushers, rag-pickers and garbage collectors; livestock raisers and date palm and cotton farmers; servers in tea stalls and car repairers. He was convinced that occupational risks could be greatly reduced with surprisingly simple means such as low-cost adaptations to traditional tools (e.g. carpet looms) and cartoon-based pamphlets. Word of his experience brought Awan into policy-making forums both within Pakistan and internationally where he was particularly known for his success in addressing child labour in hazardous occupations.
Saeed’s determination and his quiet, practical and culturally-sensitive approach to occupational health and safety has been an inspiration to WHWB and laid the foundation for its Working Groups on Brick Factories and Young Workers. In 2023, WHWB inaugurated its Saeed Awan lectures, beginning with a lecture honouring Saeed himself.
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