ALVANCE British Aluminium and their sister company JAHAMA Highland Estates social committee organised their second step challenge this year to promote health and wellbeing, but also to raise money for a local charity called ‘Connecting Young Carers’. The challenge was to walk a minimum of 10,000 steps a day for a whole month. As well as the satisfaction of achieving a set daily quantity of steps every day, this created some healthy competition across the site. 

Many staff on site can easily clock 20,000 steps a day, the Potrooms for example, is a long building, in which the only primary aluminium in the UK is produced, is 320m in length alone, the Powerhouse is 160m long which generates electricity for the whole site. The site in Fort William offers many options to keep steps boosted, including walking opportunities along the hydro access road where often staff head on their lunch breaks and an onsite gym. 

Not to mention colleagues within JAHAMA Highland Estates, with land extending over 114,000 acres of Lochaber and Badenoch. Colleagues enjoyed the personal challenge of upping their step game to 30,000 steps a day and beyond, whilst some of the office staff were still frantically trying to hit their 10,000 step targets walking up and down their streets or laps around their lounges in the evenings. To incentivise staff to embrace the challenge and improve their step counts, this was used as an opportunity to fundraise, giving staff the opportunity to get involved in charity work but also to prioritise health, win-win. The more steps meant the more money would be donated by the company on their behalf, for example, 300,000 steps got £10 and 600,000 steps could receive £50 in the monthly total, with various other amounts in-between. 

The social committee can range from fundraising through challenges to family fun days – and just recently inviting the Lochaber Environmental Group, who hosted an outdoor workshop to service bikes for staff. To boost the money raised from the step challenge – there was also a well-received bake sale, various members of staff are becoming well known for their baking skills, helping to take the total amount raised to £1,600. 

The selected charity ‘Connecting Young Carers’ is a service within the region-wide charity Highland Community Care Forum. They work to raise the profile of Young Carers, their rights and the vital role they play. They help Young Carers to access the support, advice and help they need in their caring role and to have a life alongside caring.  

Young Carers are children and young people who help to care for and support, both emotionally and practically, someone who has a physical disability or learning disability, is experiencing mental ill-health issues with substance misuse, or who has another long-term health condition. Most often Young Carers help to care for a parent, sibling or another loved one who lives with them.  

Sophie Fyfe, Young Carer Community Worker for Lochaber, commented:  

“The funds raised for Connecting Young Carers, Lochaber, will go directly to providing respite opportunities and enjoyable social group activities for all young carers aged between 5 and 24. The support of Alvance British Aluminium staff will make such a huge difference directly to the health and wellbeing of our young carers. Thank you all very much!” 

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