Transport for Cape Town (TCT), is celebrating Women’s Month by introducing its first all-female roads repair team, based at the Ndabeni Roads Depot.
The six young women from Maitland Garden Village, Langa and Gugulethu, who have been appointed as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) within TCT, are pioneers of a long-term process whereby the City is tackling gender transformation head-on. “This is a TCT Training Academy project in support of our firm belief that gender should not determine one’s fitness for employment,” says Brett Herron the City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member: Transport for Cape Town. Women are generally under-represented in the transport sector. For example, within TCT, women constitute only 3.4% of those involved with the physical maintenance of roads and stormwater infrastructure. “I am confident that this pilot project will assist us in changing perceptions about the type of work women can do,” notes Herron. “The women who have been appointed to participate in this programme all share a passion for work that benefits communities and have the desire to prove their ability as women to compete equally in a workplace that is commonly associated with men.
“I am proud of this project and will follow it very closely as I believe that women should not be excluded from any profession on the basis of their gender,” he continues.
Full developmental programmes
A second team of women will be employed in the next three months, with the project running over a period of 10 months. “The TCT training Academy has designed a monitoring system that will draw all the information from the first team’s process so that we can adapt this process by the time we hire the second group. “After this we plan to partner with the private transport sector to embark on full developmental programmes that will fit the requirements of the industry,” he adds. On-the-job training is currently being provided by the depot management team, covering the following technical fields:- Stormwater infrastructure: cleaning, unblocking, and repairing pipes, manholes and catch pits
- Footways: edging, paving, operating rollers, and raking of pre-mix used to repair surface patches
- Roads: repairing potholes, surface patches and edges, curb-laying, and operating a plant
- Line marking: painting straight lines and legends on road surface; planting of poles and signage; stencilling of street names on curbs; painting of curbs; and street name curb moulding
