10 March 2008 15:58 E.ON welcomes Women Engineers of the future

Budding young women engineers from across the East Midlands will be taking part in E.ON UK's first ever Women Into Engineering education programme this month.

A group of 130 students aged between 14 and 16 have been offered the opportunity to take part in the project aimed at attracting more women into what has traditionally been seen as a male-dominated industry.

Pupils of 14 schools across Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire will each spend time at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, taking part in activities lead by women engineers already working at E.ON, the UK's largest integrated power and gas company.

The teenagers will take part in workshop sessions with overhead linespersons, cable jointers and fitters - with an opportunity to take part in exercises to simulate real-life working situations.

There will also be female former apprentices from E.ON to help out and talk about their experiences.

One of those will be E.ON electrical engineer Alice Delahunty who earlier this year scooped the top accolade at the prestigious Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards.

Alice, 26, of Sneinton in Nottinghamshrie, beat hundreds of other candidates to take out the award and £1,000 prize money.

"Engineering has traditionally been seen as a male-orientated profession but, with this scheme, we're aiming to change all that," said Gemma Taylor, a mechanical design engineer at Central Networks who is herself an E.ON graduate trainee.

"The course provides an insight into engineering in a fun and involving way, with lots of hands-on activities presented by women engineers already enjoying a career at E.ON."

David Hughes, Stakeholder and Programme Development Manager at E.ON, added: "We believe we're missing out on a huge section of the workforce and they could be missing out on a fantastically rewarding career.

"This programme allows us to identify women with an aptitude and interest in engineering, which will help with our main priority - to ensure our future engineers become the best in their field so we can continue to build on our position as a leading force in the energy market."

E.ON already runs the Young Apprenticeship Programme, a two-year course that takes place during the final two years of students' GCSEs, with the successful candidates spending a total of 50 days at E.ON with professional engineers to gain practical experience.

Ends

Notes to editors:

You are invited to attend one of the sessions on Monday, March 17 at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station. Attendance must be confirmed in advance through the contact details below.

Visiting schools:

New College, Leicester

Beauchamp College, Oadby, Leicester

William Bradford Community College, Earl Shilton, Leicester

Countesthorpe Community College, Leicester

The Garendon School, Leicester

Riverside Community College, Leicester

Limehurst School, Leicester

St Bedes Catholic Science College, Lincs

Quegs, Horncastle, Lincs

Cordeaux School, Louth, Lincs

St Georges College of Technology, Sleaford, Lincs

The Charles Read High School, Corby Glen, Lincs

Saint John Houghton Catholic School, Derbys

Mill Hill School, Ripley, Derbys
Dukeries College, Notts

• E.ON is the UK's largest integrated power and gas company - generating and distributing electricity, and retailing power and gas - and is part of the E.ON group, the world's largest investor-owned power and gas company. We employ around 15,000 people in the UK;
• E.ON has developed two programmes to support the teaching of energy topics in schools. The Energy Experience comprises printed and interactive web-based teaching materials, with links at key stages 1-4 to the science and geography curricula. A second initiative, plugin2engineering, has been designed to assist with the teaching of electricity at key stages 3 and 4 by helping students to see how their classroom learning has applications in the real world.

For further information and to arrange attendance contact:

Deanna Mooney on 02476 183678 or Andrew Barrow on 024 7618 3677