Twenty-four women from across the Cape Town metropole have been rewarded with permanent positions in the Women at Work road maintenance division.
|||Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has rewarded 24 of its Women at Work Programme with permanent positions in its road maintenance division.
The 24 women come from across the city metropole, including Heideveld, Gugulethu, Ocean View, Masiphumelele, Maitland Garden Village, Langa, Kleinvlei, Wesbank, Mfuleni, Happy Valley and Green Park.
In a statement on Monday, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Transport, Brett Herron, said: “The women are now part of Transport for Cape Town’s permanent staff and will assist our road depots with the repair and maintenance of road and stormwater infrastructure in Ndabeni, Fish Hoek, Kuils River and Heideveld. I am extremely proud of them – they were part of the City’ s first all-female road repair teams and can be described as the pioneers of our women empowerment initiative.”
Twenty three of the women reported for their first day as City of Cape Town permanent staff on Monday morning, having been thoroughly assessed on their knowledge and skills ahead of their appointment. The other woman will join the team after her maternity leave concludes.
Transport for Cape Town (TCT) last year set up “four all-female road repair teams” as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme inside TCT as a means to empower women by providing skills for manual work usually associated with men.
“Apart from the benefit of being permanently employed, they now have the opportunity to build a career for themselves within the transport realm,” said Herron.
Within nine months of launch, the programme “received the Most Innovative Women Training Programme Award at the annual Women in Construction Awards”.
The success of the programme led to the City establishing six more all-female road repair teams this financial year. The teams will be based in Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Ebenezer, Hillstar in Wetton, Kraaifontein, and Sacks Circle in Bellville.
The programme will provide the new recruits with temporary work for a 10-month period, during which they will be equipped with skills and entrepreneurial abilities.
“Our goal for the current financial year is to provide temporary employment and training for 60 women and we have budgeted R2,4 million to achieve this. I once again want to commend all of the women who are fixing potholes and footways across our city, as well as TCT and the Training Academy. The City is committed to empowering women in the workplace and this programme clearly demonstrates that we can achieve that with a clear vision and teamwork,” said Herron.
African News Agency