Health and safety focus for Eclipse
Published: MEA
UAE: Eclipse Staging Services is feeling the benefit of recruiting a NEBOSH certified health and safety professional on a permanent basis. The appointment was made six months ago when Eclipse hired Manu Abraham, and the production company believes he has been instrumental in improving the way it operates and handles equipment.
‘H&S is extremely important to the safe operation of any business, we took it upon ourselves to create a safer working environment in our business which hopefully in turn will motivate other businesses to do the same,’ said Mark Brown, chairman of Eclipse. ‘As a business we have always been strict on H&S but it is good to know we now have someone onboard to assist and oversee this area.’
As well as improving the way the company works at its Al Quoz warehouse, Mr Abraham has made the team are more aware about the correct work practices when onsite. This has been done through a number of internal training sessions as well as external training for first aid.
‘In my view, awareness must start from the crew level itself,’ explained Mr Abraham. ‘If we ensure that crew members are correctly trained and conscious of the importance of reporting minor, and even near-miss incidents, this will in turn provide management teams with better insight into how and where to implement control measures. By taking these steps we can reduce the risk of major accidents occurring.’
Mr Abraham has also been in discussion with ISES VP education, Nowshir Engineer of the EMDI Institute about training in the real world for EMDI students. As well as this, he will be helping to write a safety document with policies and procedures which will be offered to ISES members.
Since his appointment, Mr Abraham has worked on many Eclipse productions and also acted as H&S officer for HQ Creative for their National Day Event at Festival City. ‘Working alongside HQ Creative for the UAE National Day Event further reinforced my ethos towards the importance of standardising health and safety in this region as many suppliers have different views and approaches to H&S,’ he commented.