March 8th is International Women’s Day - a day set aside to celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women throughout the world, the seed of which was sown by the Suffragettes in the early 1900’s.
This month Athena Electrical, an independent, women owned company, is celebrating 20 years of working in the electrical contracting and renewable energy sector.
According to the campaigning organisation ‘Jobs for the Girls’, whose aim is to encourage women in to the electrical contracting industry, ‘only one in every thousand electrical contractors is female’; an astonishing and saddening statistic.
Although women represent 50% of the workforce, and despite recent attempts by the construction industry to encourage women into the trades, we are still massively under-represented in most trade professions.
Viv has been working as an electrician for more than 30 years and after setting up Athena electrical in 1994 has provided employment, training and encouragement to enthusiastic and skilled female electricians.
This week, three of Athena’s team were up on a roof, enjoying the break in the rain and working hard to install a 3kWp Solar PV system on a property in Clapton.
This weekend we will be checking out our local events because although International Women’s Day is a worldwide celebration through concerts, talks, exhibitions and much more, we like to emphasise events happening locally. You can search for events in your area through the IWD website, but to whet your appetite, here are a few London based goings on around our own area of north and east London. In many cases, events are not just confined to the 8th March, but are running through the whole month.
Saturday 8th March – The London Arte Chamber Orchestra will be performing a special concert celebrating IWD at St Mellitus church in Finsbury Park.
Monday 10th March – ‘The Female Showreel’ at Rich Mix on Bethnal Green Road. Female panelists will be discussing gender issues in the media, such as Page 3, prejudice against women and lots more.
If none of those events take your fancy, then there’ll sure to be something that will, so why not attend an event and help support International Women’s Day 2014.