Vusumuzi DubeAngel Nkomo, Sunday News Reporter
THE African Women in Construction and Manufacturing (AWICOM) will be hosting a workshop on Saturday that will be focused on empowering African women in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
The training will be held under the theme; “Eradicating poverty through empowering African women in construction and manufacturing.”
The African Social and Infrastructural Development Trust (ASID) has founded the AWICOM programme with the aim to empower women in construction and manufacturing.
In an interview with Sunday News, Mr Marvelous Dube co-founder of ASID said the programme would offer various courses that will empower African women with skills for both employed and unemployed individuals.
“We are working on empowering women to become entrepreneurs so they can start innovative projects one in the construction and the other in the manufacturing industry. The courses include; tiling, brickworks, paving, plastering, building, flooring, painting, interior designing, plumbing, glazing, electric wiring and tubing,” said Mr Dube.
He said the event will train and give women sustainable skills and be a tool to fight poverty. These skills would also open doors for them to be independent and be able to obtain capital in any way possible.
“The event will ensure that the innovative programmes we are creating will sustain women in the communities so as to alleviate and reduce poverty and unemployment by giving out projects and training people giving them different skills,” he said.
“Once they have been empowered with skills, they will have chances of getting loans and capital to start their businesses,” he said.
“The idea came after realizing that the construction industry is male dominated and many women struggle to join such an industry due to factors like nepotism.”
Online Reporter