The workshop was part of the third edition of the annual festival, held at Newcastle Racecourse, and provided an insight for women looking to progress in the digital, advanced manufacturing, energy, utilities and construction industries.
Currently, only 23% of people working in STEM occupations in the UK are female and the event reached out to give attendees a taste of the careers available using these skills, as well as career perspectives.
Darush Dodds, Head of Corporate Affairs at Esh Group said: “Every year we work with over 7,000 young women via our own education programmes. We understand that our industry is still very male-orientated, but it’s an area in which women too are thriving and will continue to do so in bigger numbers in the future.
“The attendees responded well to the session and will hopefully have had their eyes opened to the opportunities in our sector.”
Esh also sponsored the festival’s Skills for Success sessions, including interactive sessions which focused on resilience, relationships, decision making, curiosity and emotional intelligence. This enabled young people to discover how to develop these key skills.
Dodds added: “The development of core employability skills aligns with our own Social Value programme. We believe that these sessions were beneficial to attendees growing their skill-set.”
Nearly 3,000 people from 700 businesses and organisations, including industry experts, engineers, students and customers, attended the third edition of the festival.
There was lots of lovely energy in the room. I’m hoping that what the mothers and daughters got out of the event is an awareness of the range of roles and industries available in the north east — things that won’t possibly have ever thought of before. It was about opening people’s minds and eyes to possibility.”
