A Christmas safety push at Gold Fields’ St Ives gold mine resulted in a monetary gift delivered to five Kalgoorlie-based community organisations.
Charity recipients with Gold Fields representatives and business partners.
(L-R) Charity recipients: Robert from GIFSA, Debora from Kalgoorlie Food Bank, Jacqui from Goldfields Women’s Refuge and Erin and Pat from the Goldfields Disability Sports Association.
(L-R) Gold Fields’ business partners: Boart Longyear, Byrnecut, MLG, Ausdrill
As part of their Safe for Summer campaign, the Gold Fields’ teams at the St Ives gold mine with support from business partners Boart Longyear, Byrnecut, Ausdrill and MLG, channelled funds into a community donation ‘pot’. The funds earned were a result of increasing and improving safety interactions over the 100 days leading up to Christmas.
St Ives General Manager Tim Hewitt said the team had also embraced the other key element of the Safe for Summer campaign, which was to try and talk to 100 people about safety over the 100 days.
“It has been a great incentive to encourage the site to speak up and be listened to, identify and address hazards in the workplace,” said Mr Hewitt added.
“These are fantastic organisations that give hope and support to so many individuals and families in and around Kalgoorlie and I am proud of the St Ives team and our business partners for their commitment to themselves and the community,” Mr Hewitt added.
Gold Fields Executive Vice President Australasia, Stuart Mathews, said the efforts of the St Ives team reflected a sustained community focus by the company in Western Australia.
“Gold Fields has been part of the Western Australian community for more than 17 years and over that time we have signification contributions into community-based projects across the Goldfields and Perth and we continue to look for opportunities to support our communities in metropolitan and regional Western Australia,” said Mr Mathews.
He said this took many forms stretching from being the major sponsor of Football West, through to partnering with WA Police in Laverton to stage the Nightfields Football Program, or donating to the Leinster Community School for its science, technology, engineering and mathematics lab.
Safe production through the sites’ Vital Behaviours culture is an all year-round commitment, but the charity incentive chosen by the employees themselves delivered $9,620 to:
Goldfields Women’s Refuge
Royal Flying Doctor Service
Kalgoorlie Food Bank
Goldfields Individual and Family Support Association (GIFSA)
Goldfields Disabled Sports
The campaign has been running since 2016, and it was the workforce or asked if an added incentive of a charity donation could be allocated to each department in an effort to continue to drive a safe production message.
The only condition to the charities chosen, was that each one must be local to the Kambalda or Kalgoorlie region and be an organisation which helps those in need over the Christmas and New Year Period, as this could be an especially harder time for some.