Julie Dickman
Julie, 51, lives in Shooters Hill with her boyfriend. She has three grown-up sons and a six-year-old granddaughter who she looks after for
her son during school holidays. She left school in 1975 and went straight into work, undertaking various office-based roles. After having her children, she did any job
she could get, from bar work to cleaning. But, despite her reception/frontline knowledge and
experience, Julie finds she is overlooked for jobs on the grounds of her age. She is currently unemployed, despite applying for 50 to 60 jobs a day online, and is desperate to find work and to get off benefits. Julie is a keen DIY-er and has had some
experience of the trade sector, as her father was a self-employed painter and decorator and her brothers work in the building trades. Julie describes herself as part of the ‘forgotten
generation’ – too old to get a job but too young not to work. By undertaking the Wired for Success initiative, she wants to inspire women of her age, showing them that it is still possible to get back
with EAS Education and on-site work placements with the ECA’s contractor partners, Axis Europe, Mulalley and Smith & Byford.
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Skills deficit The industry’s skills deficit, however, lies in the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector, where the traditional three-year work-based apprenticeship is required. This route relies on a student being employed. However, following privatisation of the electricity boards, which used to take on thousands of apprentices annually, there has been a steady decline in apprentice numbers – and the financial burden of employing an apprentice has reduced the number of employer companies willing to take them on, particularly
Hoa Chi Luu
Hoa is a single mother from New Eltham, aged 35. She has a 12-year-old daughter, Kira, who has cerebral palsy. Originally from Vietnam, Hoa came to the UK with her family when she was six, and left school at 16
with four GCSEs. She dropped out of college to do casual work, before having her daughter. Kira has just started secondary school, so Hoa now has the free time to get back into work. Now that her daughter’s care is not so demanding of her time, Hoa wants to find a career with prospects and feels that the ECA Wired for Success Initiative is a ‘gift’. She can see the opportunities that being a female
electrician offers, for example setting up a business specialising in new markets where women tradespeople are preferred, because of cultural sensitivities. Hoa says: ‘This will help me set a good example for my daughter, Kira, now that she is able to do things for herself and have a normal life around her disability.’
into work and stand on your own two feet. ‘When I go to sign on – which I hate – there are no options for women,’ she says. ‘The men are told, “We can train you to be gas fitters”, but women are only given computing and office training, which I’ve done, and passed, and I still can’t get a job. ‘I feel like part of a forgotten generation. If I
do this, this will be a good profession; I can get work out of it and I will be able to afford to go to the shops and buy a loaf of bread and pay my rent in full. At the moment, I have no money, I can’t see any prospects, I’m 51 and I often think I’m going to die like this.’
in the current challenging economic climate. So, as well as providing a direct pathway to work in the
domestic arena, Wired for Success hopes to demonstrate a clear qualification route into the C&I sector by taking a small number of candidates through the follow-on bridging process to enable them to work in the C&I environment.
Flexibility Pastoral care will be an important element of both courses, as going back to study could be a daunting prospect for many of the women in the programme. Every effort is being taken to ensure that the programme is as flexible as possible to accommodate family commitments. The ECA will continue to support the candidates at the end of the two-year training
The programme will enable candidates to qualify to work in the domestic environment
There are many people in society who would welcome a female electrician into their homes
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ECA Today November 2011
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