For Global Lifting Awareness Day, which takes place on Thursday 18th July 2024, the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association (LEEA) has introduced an eye-catching campaign showing how lifting has always been changing everybody’s world.
The campaign comprises a series of posters featuring a selection of lifting’s noteworthy achievements through the ages. They start by celebrating Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the renowned Victorian civil engineer behind landmark projects such as the Great Western Railway and the Clifton Suspension Bridge as well as the Great Western, Great Eastern and Great Britain steamships. The series continues with Mary Macarthur of the National Federation of Women Workers who in 1910 led the women chain makers of Cradley Heath on strike to improve conditions and wages for woman in factories across the UK. A third poster features the Samson and Goliath cranes that have been standing tall over the Belfast Skyline in the dockyard of iconic shipbuilders Belfast Harland and Wolff since 1969.
The lighter side of lifting is represented by Patrick Swayze holding Jennifer Grey aloft. This famous image from the classic 1987 film Dirty Dancing has well and truly entered pop culture.
Two further posters illustrate remarkable construction feats. In 2004, excavation work began for Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which currently stands as the tallest free standing man made structure in the world. And in 2020, as part of the renovations of the Tiffany & Co store in New York, the delicate process using three cranes to lift a mobile crane weighing over 66 tons up 7 stories in a busy Manhattan street demonstrated the ingenious ways lifting can overcome challenges in construction. These are just some of the lifting achievements that have created our world today.
“This important LEEA campaign will help to make lifting more relatable by showing everybody outside our industry how it has changed their world and continues to impact their everyday life, said Ross Moloney, CEO of the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association.
He added: “We anticipate that #GLAD2024 will raise our industry to even greater heights with more people taking part than ever. Everyone with an interest in the Lifting Industry is encouraged to join the journey and support #GLAD2024. It is a great chance for us all to celebrate the incredible role lifting continues to perform in creating the world about us. And, if we all post messages on social media with the GLAD2024 hash-tag, it really will help to raise our collective voices and drive greater awareness of our vital sector.”
You can download LEEA’s posters and videos celebrating Global Lifting Awareness Day, along with other useful material to share and use, by downloading the #GLAD2024 toolkit at https://globalliftingawarenessday.com/downloads.
