Awareness grows for women in trades

INITIATIVES of Women’s Health Grampians to support female workers in the trades sector are being celebrated by a leading not-for-profit in the space.

Five people working with WHG on their See What You Can Be and Act On Site programs have been named as finalists in charity, Empowered Women in Trades’, annual awards.

See What You Can Be seeks to address barriers and enablers for women and girls entering trades careers, and aims to highlight pathways into education, training, and jobs.

“On a casual basis, we employ women who are tradies and advocates, and four of them are finalists,” See What You Can Be coordinator Ange van den Berg said.

“They speak at events, go and help with try-a-trade days at schools, sit on panels, and do all sorts of things to advocate for women in trades.

“Act on Site, our complimentary program led by Katja Fiedler, works with businesses in male-dominated industries such as construction and manufacturing to change workplace cultures.

“Brad Adams is finalist for the Culture Change Award, and is the manager of UGL. They have done whole organisation training, and have been implementing new policies and procedures over the past six months.”

Ms van den Berg said the recognition that advocacy and culture change work within these male-dominated industries is receiving is something to have pride in.

“We’re also proud, as a regional centre, to be punching above our weight in these awards, and we acknowledge the great work of our friends at Empowered Women in Trades,” she said.

WHG’s work in this area has been undertaken for about two years, and Ms van den Berg said they’re seeing shifts in conversation.

“We’ve noticed a growing awareness of the need to have more women in trades,” she said. “We’re the only women’s health service doing a program like this, but there is interest from others.

“What we bring to it is a gender lens and a real understanding of what some of the barriers can be for women getting into these roles.

“At Women’s Health Grampians, we have expertise in gender equality, a really long history of culture change and offering training around bystander action and unconscious bias.

“In applying that to these industries, and working from a strong evidence base, we’re having such a great impact.”

Funding for these programs from the Federal Government’s Office for Women will come to an end in June 2024.

“We’re exploring our options and doing some advocacy to get funding to continue our work because we’re finally getting such traction and recognition,” Ms van den Berg said.

The Empowered Women in Trades Awards are in February of next year.