Samsu Jalloh, a Site Engineer working on the Rozelle Interchange in Sydney, took some time out from tunnelling to talk about his commitment to workplace safety.
Safety is everything
I enjoy my job but at the end of the day, I look forward to going home to be with my family. After a stressful day, when I see my daughter it makes me want to do it all over again. I know that through the work I do, I’m building a better future for her.
I became a father earlier this year and this made me focus on protecting myself and everyone around me. My daughter is only seven months old and having her in my life has made me stop and think before I do things. I pay even more attention to caring for myself, my team and my colleagues.
For me, safety is everything.
I make sure I follow the project safety guidelines and comply with safety procedures because I want to make sure everyone is safe. Having a family has made me passionate about making sure everyone goes home at the end of the day. I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a loved one; imagine your child looking forward to you coming home every day, and then one day you don’t.
I feel safe working on the Rozelle Interchange because safety values are at their peak. The superintendents are awesome and there is no joking around when it comes to safety. I admire that the team assembled here show, every day, that safety is the priority.
Moving to Australia and working on the WestConnex
I’m currently employed as a Site Engineer on the Iron Cove tunnel site. Before that I was working on the New M5 where I was part of the tunnel team and did excavation and tunnel finishing.
I moved to Australia from Sierra Leone in 2011 and was originally studying ICT at TAFE, but I didn’t find it interesting and started to look around for something different.
I got on the internet and came across WestConnex, which was a massive project and I thought, “I want to be part of this.”
I researched the project and understood all the different roles that would be needed and found that what they would really need was civil engineers. I thought, “Yes, I’m really going to do this,” and a week later I applied to the University of Western Sydney.
I went with a very clear vision of what I wanted to do and at my very first lecture, the lecturer said, “There are massive projects starting, so by the time you guys graduate you can be part of something really big.”
That was great reinforcement of my plan to work on WestConnex.
Value for the community
When I joined the Rozelle Interchange team, I saw that one of the project’s values was “Care”.
And I wondered, why “Care”?
I didn’t really understand it, until I saw the site and realised that the project is in the middle of the community and unless we are very careful, we can cause inconvenience to many people. When I went to the induction, it was all about how we have to try and minimise our impact.
When I see the plans and images of the finished product, of what it will look like when it is finished, with parks, sporting fields and walking tracks, I feel good knowing that we are delivering something of value to the community.
It is good for me to know that I am building something that my daughter will use. I’ll tell her all about it when she grows up.