Female Workforce Empowered in Construction

The EU construction sector, is one of the largest and most influential in the world. It rapidly develops and continuously incorporates new technologies and sustainable practices. In recent years, ...

The main objective of FEMCON was to make the construction industry more attractive for women and convincing women, trainers, construction companies and policy makers about necessary changes and actions that can be taken to create more open and pleased environment for female workforce. Therefore the project was focused to: - Inspire and empower towards the positive change in the construction industry and better representation of the female workforce, as well as protection of their rights - Create conditions for positive change to happen and improve the construction industry outlook in women eyes, - Learn more about the need for change and the role of action plans to create common and consistent strategy for creating females pleased environment - Increase the attractiveness of the industry for women, by presenting a greater number of women choosing the sector and underlying the necessity of more visible female roles in construction industry and more favourable positions that can be taken also by women. - Develop innovative vocational education & training that assists women working in or considering a career in construction industry to progress to visible roles within the industry.

To elaborate engaging and inspirating educational materials and engage women, construction companies, trainers and policy makers to implement changes and more open attitude to construction industry the following activities were performed: • For the toolkit and action plan purposes: the desk research to review the situation on women in construction industry, interview with women in construction, gender experts, policy makers and construction company managers to inspire changes in construction industry and indicate actions that can be taken to support changes within construction industry and women attitude, self-assessment questionnaire to raise awareness about the situation of the company/organization takin part in assessment; • For the purpose of open education resources – in depth analysis of PR1 interviews suggestions and literature and reports analysis to indicate topic for modules, desk research to elaborate training materials, learning methods analyzing to choose the most appropriate for learning purposes, case studies and exercises to develop practical competences and attract learning materials; • For the purpose of showcase – interviews with policy makers, women in constructions, construction managers and gender experts to convince women to construction industry, motivate and inspire changes and raise awareness about situation and challenges within construction industry; • For platform and online course – gathering and categorization of educational materials to motivate learning and developing competences needed to develop carrier in construction industry.

PR1: FEMCON INCLUSION REACH & TEACH TOOLKIT – a toolkit helping VET educators reach construction companies & potential female workforce to inspire them to learn more about the need for change and action plan creation to reduce gender inequality and more female friendly environment. PR2: FEMCON Curriculum – a collection of Open Education Resources, bite-sized and easy to use materials, aimed at women working or interested in a career in the construction industry, which VET educators will use to help career progression & development for females in this industry. PR3: FEMCON Women in Construction Good Practice Showcase – a compendium of 35 multimedia case studies dedicated for women to inspire, motivate and mobilise to develop carrier in construction as well construction industry to embrace and support female workforce in construction and improve the underrepresentation of women in the whole industry future. PR4: FEMCON Women in Construction Platform & online course – an interactive learning digital platform to facilitate collaboration, promote peer to peer learning and encourage cross-project fertilisation of ideas to accelerate learning. The platform is fulfilled with PR1, PR2 and PR3 results and supported by additional learning materials content giving the opportunity to gain knowledge and competencies needed to develop carrier in construction industry.