A Leeds team has won £12,000!

Life Award 2012

A Leeds team has won £12,000 in an awards scheme which rewards projects that use plumbing skills to enhance life.

The BPEC Charity has announced The Mozambique Health Centre Project as the winner of its first ever Life Award.

A team at NG Bailey, which is based in Brown Lane West, Leeds, won the BPEC Charity Life Award for the design of a project that will deliver a safe water system to a health clinic in Cobue, Mozambique.

The team was led by Lee Firth and also included mechanical BSE student James Reid, junior project engineer Oliver Pengelly, and trainee mechanical designer Kayley Lockhead.

Winning the award means that they will now be able to travel to Mozambique to install the design, which was drawn up following an approach from a UK doctor working in Mozambique. Currently drinking water in the village is sourced from a nearby polluted lake.

“My team feels privileged to have an opportunity to deliver a project which will have an enormous impact on the lives and well-being of people in such a deprived area,” said Lee Firth, technical programme manager.

The award was one of four totalling almost £30,000 presented by the BPEC Charity – the charitable arm of BPEC, which is the leading training and certification provider to the building services engineering sector.

They were announced at an awards ceremony attended by 100 representatives of the plumbing industry at Pride Park Stadium, Derby, on October 24^th 2012. The awards, in memory of BPEC’s founding chairman Raymond J Brooks, were presented by the Charities Trustees.

Other awards were given to Burnley College for a project to take apprentice plumbers to Uganda to work alongside a village community to build wells to provide safe, clean drinking water; Martin Biron and his associates from the College of North West London for the creation of a virtual plumbing college online to support plumbing students and teachers in understanding the key principles and processes of the plumbing industry; and plumber John Booth, from Fareham, Hampshire, for his involvement in the Peace & Hope Trust’s charity work in Nicaragua.

BPEC chairman Frank Glover said: “BPEC is delighted to have presented four separate awards at our inaugural BPEC Charity Life Awards event. Each of the award winning entries has shown how plumbing can make a difference to life, and we congratulate Lee Firth and his team of apprentices as the recipients of the BPEC Life Award.”

Now the search has started for applicants for next year’s BPEC Charity Life Awards, with organisers urging those who work in the plumbing sector to put themselves forward.

“There are so many ways in which plumbing skills can enhance life,” said Frank Glover. “It may be through product invention, an innovative solution or service, a charitable plumbing activity or project, raising the image of plumbing or a change in perspective. We hope that this year’s winners will provide inspiration to others who could be award winners in 2013.”

BPEC, which was established in 1992, is the leading provider of training and certification for the building services engineering sector, which covers the gas, oil, plumbing, electrotechnical, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration industries.

The organisation’s training materials range from technical training packs for domestic gas safety and water regulations to a selection of renewable energies manuals such as solar thermal hot water and heat pumps.

BPEC is dedicated to education and lifelong learning, and seeks to encourage individuals to undertake further training to continuously update their skills, both for personal development and to keep abreast of the industry’s technological advances.

Its charitable arm – The BPEC Charity – launched the Life Award in 2012 to reward and support those in the UK plumbing industry who use plumbing skills to enhance life.

To find out more about entering next year’s Life Awards visit https://bpec.org.uk/the-bpec-charity/