Alcoa families put best hand forward at Willowdale Bauxite Mine with heartfelt safety initiative

Alcoa’s Willowdale bauxite mine now has a constant reminder about the importance of staying safe at work, with employees’ families adding their handprints and names to the walls of the mine’s heavy vehicle park-up pedestrian tunnel. The handprints for safety activity was a popular part of the Willowdale Family Fun Day, which was held early last month. The activity was undertaken in the pedestrian tunnel, an innovative safety initiative which won a Certificate of Merit at the Department of Mining and Industrial Regulation and Safety’s Work Health and Safety Excellence Awards last year. Family members traced around their hands with paint pens on the freshly painted tunnel walls, adding their names, love hearts and personal safety messages for the site workers. Organiser Duncan Ross said the activity was inspired by similar initiatives at other sites he worked at and that the messages would be sealed to protect and preserve them for as long as possible.