01 May 2008 11:47
Career connections: E.ON welcomes Women Engineers of the future

More than 100 budding young women engineers from across the Midlands have been making a connection with a possible future career, taking part in E.ON UK's first ever Women Into Engineering education programme.

A group of 130 students aged between 14 and 16 took part in the project, spending a day either at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station or the Learning and Skills Centre at Tipton, taking part in activities lead by women engineers already working at E.ON, the UK's largest integrated power and gas company.

The main aim is to attract more women into what has traditionally been seen as a male-dominated industry.

Workshops included sessions with overhead linespersons, cable jointers and fitters with an opportunity to take part in exercises to simulate real-life working situations, including scaling electricity poles.

Among the engineers from E.ON helping out and talking about their experiences was 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, said: "Engineering has traditionally been seen as a male-orientated profession but with this scheme we're aiming to change all that.

"It was amazing to see how keen these girls were. It's not so long ago now that I was at the beginning of my career and I hope they go on to find it as rewarding as I have."

The sessions were organised by Gemma Taylor, a mechanical design engineer at Central Networks who is herself an E.ON graduate trainee.

She said: "The days were a great success, with more than 100 girls having experienced what life working on the network can be like.

"It was designed to give local girls the chance to try out life as a craftsperson, and experience what it is like to work on the electricity network."

Pupils from King Charles 1 High School in Kidderminster took part. Eileen Stead, the school's Business & Enterprise Project Manager, said: "Students were given information about overhead and underground repair work and enjoyed pole climbing and simulated electrical activities.

"They were inspired to see the opportunities and training available to them within engineering.

"The students had a brilliant day and are definitely considering a career in engineering and were impressed with the opportunities at E.ON."

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:

• 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 more information and to request pictures contact:

Andrew Barrow on 024 7618 3677