Applies to programme directors, researchers, country leads, local project managers, construction teams, volunteers, partners, regular contractors, and anyone acting essentially in relation to the Floor4Africa Programme.

1. Purpose

Floor4Africa exists to improve inclusive education, public health, decent work, and usable school environments in rural and urban-slum communities through locally built, cleanable concrete floors and other small works. This policy sets out how the programme treats people fairly in that work. It is written for the R&D field use. Equality here means equal access to the programme’s opportunities and protections. Diversity means the programme works with the people who actually live in the places it operates. Inclusion means local people design, build, manage, and benefit from the work.

2. Scope

This policy covers:

    •    recruitment and appointment of international and local team members

    •    selection of Junior Project Managers, including returning migrants and refugees to boost local development

    •    selection of local construction professionals and apprentices

    •    choice of schools, houses, clinics, or community works

    •    treatment of children, parents, teachers, and community members on site

    •    fundraising, research, data collection, and public communications

    •    remote work linked to the programme (including Big Data and AI roles)

It applies in every country where the Floor4Africa Programme operates and in its headquarters.

3. Principles

• Local development first: floors and related works are built by local professionals with local materials only. European staff or robots do not displace local labour force in urban slums and remote villages Africa.

• Merit and reliability on site: construction and project-management roles are awarded on competence, honesty, availability, and ability to deliver safely and on time.

• No unlawful discrimination: no one is excluded from work, training, or a project because of sex, age, disability, religion or belief, ethnicity, nationality, language, pregnancy, marital status, or similar status, except where a genuine operational requirement applies (for example, a role that must be filled by a person legally able to work in that country).

• Children and schools come first: school projects exist so children can learn more efficiently on a cleanable floor. Site conduct must protect pupils, especially children with special needs.

• Returning talent is welcome: people who return to a safe country of origin may be trained and hired as Junior Project Managers if they meet the same standards as anyone else. The same relates to refugees, if the work is available and allowed to bring or boost local development in the hosting country.

• Dignity on site: bullying, harassment, theft, corruption, sexual exploitation, and child abuse are forbidden.

• Honest reporting: impact claims (health, jobs, education, plastic recycling, migration) must be evidence-based and not inflated.

4. What equality means in this programme

4.1 Communities and beneficiaries:

    •    Existing schools or houses are selected by need, feasibility, local consent, and available funds - not by political favour, clan, religion, or personal connection to the international team.

    •    Girls and boys must have equal practical use of improved school spaces. Where toilets or sanitation are part of a project, privacy and safety for girls are mandatory.

    •    Community meetings must be held in a language people understand and at times local workers and parents can attend.

4.2 Work and training:

    •    Junior Project Manager roles are open to relatively young people from the locality, including those without formal credentials if they can learn the method and keep to site rules.

    •    Women who can do the construction, site-supervision, or project-management work must be considered on the same competence standard as men. The programme does not invent quotas.

    •    People with disabilities may work in roles they can perform safely, mostly with data and big data. The programme already treats remote data work as one such route; field roles are assessed case by case for safety.

4.3 International team:

    •    Headquarters and research roles are filled on skill, availability, and integrity.

    •    Nationality of the international team is mixed by the nature of the work. That mix is not a substitute for local leadership in country.

5. Inclusion in practice

    •    Project start: local Project Manager is identified before works begin. Community and school leadership are informed of scope, project budget and cost cap, and who is paid. No school, family, individual or any institution pays for the cleanable floor or any related aspects of the Floor4Africa Profgamme.

    •    Labour: construction tasks are done by a locally present crew only. Apprentices can be paid or clearly agreed as trainees. Child labour is not used.

    •    Materials: local suppliers are used where quality and price meet the "Stan Floor C16/20 Africa / Africa+" standard.

    •    Schools: works are usually scheduled to reduce disruption to teaching. Pupils are kept off wet or hazardous areas.

    •    Migrants and returnees: they follow the same training standard and the same accountability as other Junior Project Managers. There is no preference that lowers safety or quality.

    •    Money: electronic payments are documented. Cash should be avoided when possible. Facilitation payments are not used. Theft or diversion ends the relationship.

    •    Language: key safety and payment information is given in a working local language, not only English.

6. Conduct that is not acceptable

    •    Refusing a qualified local worker because of gender, ethnicity, religion, or clan

    •    Preferring a relative or political ally over a competent local professional

    •    Sexual harassment, sexual contacts, bad behaviours related to pupils, or any sexual exploitation of beneficiaries

    •    Using programme funds or materials for other purposes than the programme's ones

    •    Photographing or recording children without informed adult consent and a clear programme purpose

    •    Claiming “inclusion” while excluding the local crew from decisions that affect their pay or safety

    •    Appointments that put an untrained person in charge of structural work

Breaches can lead to removal from the programme implementation, end of partnership, and, where criminal, referral to local authorities.

7. Responsibilities

    •    Programme Director owns this policy and decides serious cases.

    •    Deputy Director / Head of Construction Standards owns site safety and competence standards.

    •    Country and local Project Managers apply the policy on the ground and report problems within 48 hours.

    •    Researchers and volunteers follow consent, safeguarding, and data rules.

    •    Every person paid or volunteering under the Floor4Africa Programme is bound by sections 5 and 6.

8. Safeguarding note (children and vulnerable adults)

Floor4Africa Programme works in and around schools, family houses or other existing properties in urban slums and rural areas of the Global South. Anyone with unsupervised access to children must be known to the local Project Manager and school head. Allegations of abuse are reported immediately to the school authority and, where required by law, to the police. The programme does not investigate child-abuse allegations as an internal HR matter alone.

9. Complaints

A worker, teacher, parent, or partner can complain to:

    1    the local Project Manager

    2    if that person is the problem, the country lead or Programme Director: kontakt (at) smpe.pl

Complaints about pay, safety, harassment, or exclusion should be acknowledged quickly and passed on in writing as email or text message. Retaliation against a good-faith complainant is itself a breach of this policy.

10. Monitoring (light, usable)

The programme will record, per project, in ordinary project files - not a separate bureaucracy:

    •    who the local Project Manager and crew lead were

    •    whether women were in paid crew or supervision roles

    •    whether the school or community consented

    •    any complaint and how it was closed

    •    whether Africa+ local plastic content was used, and from which local source

Annual reporting should describe this in general figures, not EDI scorecards.

11. Relationship to law and SDGs

This policy does not replace Kenyan, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Sierra Leonean, Polish, UK, or other applicable labour, equality, child-protection, or anti-corruption law. Where law is stricter, law wins. The policy supports the programme’s stated goals: SDG 3 (healthier indoor environments), SDG 4 (usable school space), SDG 8 (local decent work), SDG 13 (plastic reuse where the Africa+ standard is used), and SDG 1 (practical poverty reduction through jobs and durable floors).

12. Review

Review at least every two years, or after a serious incident. Changes are approved by the Programme Director and noted with a new version.

Last update: September 2026