Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston awarded $70K for workplace fall-prevention training

By Matt Rocheleau, Town Correspondent

The Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston has been awarded $70,000 through a federal grant program to provide workplace fall prevention and protection training to Portuguese and Spanish residential construction workers and small business employers.

The program will offer training and materials in English, Spanish and Portuguese; will target workers and employers in the Boston area; and will include a “train-the-trainer” component, said the US Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The funding was awarded through the Susan Harwood Training Grant Program, which this week announced $10.7 million in awards given to 72 nonprofits nationwide, federal labor officials said.

The center in Allston was one of two grant recipients in Massachusetts.

The other Bay State recipient, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, was awarded $156,750 to provide training that addresses ergonomic hazards for nursing home workers and employers in the Northeast, officials said.

That training will be targeted to low-literacy workers and those who speak limited English, according to the press release. Training materials will be available in English and Spanish. A four-hour “train-the-trainer” course will be offered.

The federal grant program aims to train and educate workers and employers on how to recognize, avoid and prevent safety and health hazards in the workplace, officials said. The program also strives to inform workers of their rights and employers of their responsibilities mandated by federal law.

Since 1978, more than 1.8 million workers have been trained through the program, which targets small-business employers and underserved low-literacy workers in high-hazard industries, according to the administration.

“The Department of Labor is committed to ensuring that workers and employers are provided education and training on identifying and preventing serious workplace hazards,” said a statement from Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “These grants awarded by the federal government will provide workers and employers in some of the most dangerous industries with important tools to identify and eliminate such hazards.”

For information about this year’s grant recipients, click here and here.

E-mail Matt Rocheleau at mjrochele@gmail.com.
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