Heideveld boasts its first all-female team to repair roads
13 April 2016
The newly appointed all-female roads repair team is based at the Transport for Cape Town (TCT) depot in Heideveld and has been appointed as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) within TCT to repair and do maintenance work on roads, footways and stormwater infrastructure in Heideveld, Manenberg, Tambo Village, Athlone, Surrey Estate and the areas adjacent to Jakes Gerwel Drive.
Women at Work programme
‘Women at Work is a gender transformation programme within TCT which is collaboratively implemented by the TCT Training Academy, the EPWP and selected roads depots across the city. The purpose of this programme is to empower women in the workplace by providing them with skills for manual work that is generally associated with men. With the skills and entrepreneurial abilities they develop during the 10-month employment period, these women will be better equipped to find placement in the permanent job market,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member: Transport for Cape Town, Councillor Brett Herron.
The team was established in March 2016 and consists of six members. They follow in the footsteps of the all-female teams of the TCT depots in Ndabeni (introduced in August 2015), Fish Hoek (introduced in November 2015), and Kuils River (introduced in February 2016).
The Women at Work Programme has also been nominated for the fourth annual Women in Construction Awards that will be held in Johannesburg on 10 May 2016.
‘A total of 24 women would have benefitted through the Women at Work Programme by the end of the financial year on 30 June 2016. We have spent approximately R1 million on this programme. We now aim to establish 10 all-female roads repair teams accommodating another 60 women in the next financial year,’ said Councillor Herron.
Skills development and training
On-the-job training is provided at the depot, covering the following technical fields:
- Stormwater infrastructure: cleaning, unblocking, and repairing pipes, manholes and catch pits
- Footways: edging, paving, operating rollers, and raking pre-mix used to repair surface patches
- Roads: repairing potholes, surface patches and edges, laying kerbs, and operating a plant
- Line marking: painting straight lines and legends on road surface, planting poles and signage, stencilling street names on kerbs, painting kerbs, and street name kerb moulding
Apart from the abovementioned technical training, the women are also coached in life skills, entrepreneurial skills, conflict management and team work.
‘The Heideveld team is currently being trained to clean and repair gullies, as well as to fix potholes. We are looking forward to seeing the women working on the streets and sidewalks in Heideveld. I hope that this initiative inspires the private sector to also get involved by assisting us to cover the indirect costs, or by offering these women permanent employment opportunities,’ said Councillor Herron.
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