First Edition focuses on “Wages of Domestic Employees”

The Labour Market Regulatory authority CEO, Mr. Ausamah Bin Abdulla Alabsi announced the launch of the Annual Bahrain Awards, which will be held every year with the objective of enhancing the community’s awareness and to support the concept of respecting the rights and duties of the expatriate workers, who make up an important part of our society in the Kingdom.

Mr. alabsi said: The Labour Market Regulatory authority’s aim is to secure a well regulated Labour Market in which all the parties respect and honor their obligations towards each other. Creating this awareness takes high priority at the LMRA in particular when it concerns the Domestic employees.

Mr. alabsi revealed that the LMRA has been working for some time to find real solutions to the issue of Salaries Employees being paid on time and regularly as stipulated by the Kingdom’s law. Today LMRA announces with great pleasure its collaboration with MasterCard International and Bahrain’s Payment International Enterprise (PIE) to provide facilities to employers to enable them to transfer salaries in the most modern ways, as well as allowing the Expatriate employees a guaranteed process to receive their salaries, withdraw them and make transfers. Doors are open for employers to join this service voluntarily and benefit from these facilities which is a leap in commercial practices for workers in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

He added that in this respect the LMRA is pioneering among other regional states to provide similar solutions, and has indeed entered the implementation phase and has collaborated with MasterCard International to provide such services and facilities in these states as well.

Mr. alabsi continued that implementation of this initiative will likely begin in April 2015, and that MasterCard is also sponsoring the Competition this year by providing the prize for “Creative Excellence” for the participants.

On the Occasion Mr. Girish Nanda Director for MasterCard in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, stated that we are proud to collaborate with LMRA in Bahrain and are grateful for their trust in us, and we look forward to a world where people will not need to use cash money but rather instead we encourage electronic transactions, which will specially benefit the expatriate workers since it prevents loss or theft of their cash money and by relying on MasterCard services and product bring more relief and allows easy and safe transfers and secure remittance facilities to their home countries.

As for the Competition Mr. alabsi clarified that the LMRA intends to hold this competition annual so that every year we will highlight a particular themes that concerns the Expatriate workers who play an important role in the various aspects of the Bahraini society. Adding that we see that this year we will focus on an important issue which is the payment of the Salaries of Domestic employees on time, so that every year we will have a new theme to create public awareness and will be the aim of the competition.”

The growth in number of Workers in the Kingdom triggers the need for increasing the awareness in the community to include every member of every family and to build on the achievement of the nation in the past years and to raise the level of care and importance of the rights of the workers’ .

Mr. alabsi stated that concept of the Competition are based on the creative vision and thoughts to create public awareness that come from an important and major sector in the society which is the Youth, the age group that can be creative and have a high level of innovation and mastery of communication of messages in the best manner and have the most power to impact and be affective.

The contestants will be required to prepare and design the media material which could be a short film, photography drawing and painting, poster etc… which will go before a judge’s panel and then it will open the stage to promoting the qualifying works via the social media.
The competing works will be open for a public vote via the dedicated website for the Awards and the winners will be awarded cash prizes as well as participants in the voting process.

The competition is based on the principle that the messages ispresented by the public, and is promoted by the contestants themselves to reach to the public which will be targeted throughthe social media which will open new horizons of creativity and innovation for the youth, by creating the idea, the message, the means to spread it and publicize it to the largest possible sector of the society. This itself will create appositive acceptance since the contestants will be participating either with a short film or a photograph or poster of a painting and promote it via the social media.

The competition will begin with the launch on Wednesday 10thDecember 2014 , with the launch of the dedicated website which contains all the needed information and details regading the participation on the following link www.bahrainawards.com