Corporate Responsibility

Construction workers in India

Corporate responsibility should begin close to home – for us that means tackling a serious issue within our own industry, the vulnerability of construction workers.

Often slipping through the cracks of government health programmes, at serious risk from HIV/AIDS, and generally without the option to argue for their workers’ rights, construction workers in India are considered a very vulnerable sector of society.

Empowering through ‘Life Enrichment’

This situation led to the development of our ‘Life Enrichment’ programme, designed to improve the status and welfare of the workers on our sites – comprehensively, sustainably and, most importantly, collectively.

Beginning with HIV education and awareness, the programme has grown to incorporate holistic approaches to healthcare, family planning, living conditions, nutrition and personal empowerment.

Introducing innovative methods

Due to the stigma attached with some of the programme’s core functions, and to ensure momentum of the programme across sites, Life Enrichment uses a number of unique tools to communicate with workers. Street plays, puppet shows and videos have been used to bring HIV issues to life in an engaging way. Focus group discussions have enabled difficult topics to be broached and normalised collectively in group settings. And a system of peer educators and coordinators has enabled effective dissemination of information and learnings.

Sustaining the initiative

After three successful phases, we are now working towards a self-sustaining roll-out of the programme with our NGO partner SNS Foundation. Moving forward the programme will be primarily driven by site management teams across all of our project sites in India. This will enable those sites already reached to continue the programme into the future, and all other sites to introduce the programme from the start.

Safety

Respecting safety standards is a basic and critical responsibility of any construction company. We believe this wholeheartedly, and we owe it to both our workers and our clients to ensure the care and safety of every worker on our sites. All of our workers are equipped with industry standard uniforms and undertake our specially developed safety training programme ‘Toolbox Talks’. Our sites are also subject to regular internal safety audits to maintain standards. We’re very proud of our long-term safety record, which you can read about here.
See our safety photo story for more.