Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Centre (OSHAD) has organized an informative workshop about the annual Safety in Heat competition to be held on 10th July in conjunction with Musanada and Zonescorp.
The workshop attendees include 30 property developers from more than 30 residential cities belonging to Zonescorp and 65 representatives from Musanada construction projects.
Dr Jaber Eidha Al Jaberi, Director General of OSHAD, says “the Safety in Heat Program competition has been created to recognize and reward entities that comply with the requirements of Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health System Framework (OSHAD SF) and the midday break law and also provide and maintain world-class working conditions for their workforce during the difficult summer months.”
The Safety in Heat Program was first launched by OSHAD in 2014 to raise awareness of the requirements that must be met by employers in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in order to protect workers from the summer heat. Subsequently, in 2016, the Safety in Heat Competition was launched by OSHAD to celebrate excellence in implementing the program, requirements and standards. The award not only recognizes employers but also workers and their contribution to relevant programs.
The categories in the competition include Best Residential City, Best Construction Project, Best Worker, Best Innovation by a Workers Residential City, Best Innovation by a Construction project and Best Innovation by a worker.
OSHAD will form a judging panel made up of specialists from OSHAD and its competition partners. Judging will be based upon the criteria set and shared with the participating entities.
The participating entities must demonstrate their active contribution to the Safety in Heat Program by providing detailed examples on how they implemented the program. Further evidence of robust implementation will also be gathered through an inspection and audit program. All participating entities will be visited to verify the evidence they have submitted as part of their applications.
“During 2016’s campaign, the OSHAD team conducted 30 inspection visits to Workers Residential Cities, which are home to around 380,000 laborers”
Engineer Suweidan Rashed Al Dhaheri, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Musanada, adds “we are very proud to be a part of this important campaign which is taking place for the second consecutive year. All our projects are competing with each other to be the best and win one of the prestigious awards which of course has a direct result of improving the safety and health of the workforce”.
In addition to the competition, OSHAD has produced campaign awareness materials in multiple languages that will be distributed to work sites and residential cities throughout Abu Dhabi. Furthermore OSHAD staff will conduct a programme of site visits and awareness workshops at various sites across the emirate.
During 2016’s campaign, the OSHAD team conducted 30 inspection visits to Workers Residential Cities, which are home to around 380,000 laborers. One of the most important visits was to Ghantoot which included an awareness workshop for more than 500 workers and another visit to a service company for the management of real estate and services featured an awareness workshop that was attended by 150 workers. The final visit was to the construction site of the new airport complex project attended by 210 workers for the awareness workshop. Last year’s campaign also included the distribution of 100 thousand awareness materials to various operating entities covering approximately 600,000 workers.
The winners of the competition will be invited to attend a closing award ceremony in October to receive certificates and awards from the senior management of OSHAD, Zonescorp and Musanada.