From 11th to 15th November, the six partners of the ‘Women Can Build LatAm’ project, co-funded by the European Union's Erasmus+ programme, are meeting in Santiago de Chile to discuss the actions that they will carry out to promote the integration of more women in the sector.

Currently, the consortium is working on the development of a Status Quo report that will include the situation of the construction sector regarding the integration and representation of women in the countries participating in this initiative (Spain, Italy, Chile and Argentina). This report will be integrated into the ‘Purple Book of Women in Construction’ which will also include a self-assessment tool on the level of insertion of women in construction companies and an Action Plan aimed at several sectoral actors.

For a week, the partners have been able to learn about the experiences of the Chilean entities of the consortium, RedMaestra and the Catholic University of Temuco, to attract female talent to the works and to strengthen alliances with sectoral agents, such as Dictuc and the Technological Centre of Construction Companies (CTeC).

Women Can Build: an initiative to increase the number of female construction workers

In 2017, the percentage of women employed in Spain in the sector was 9 %. Based on this figure, Fundación Laboral de la Construcción launched the ‘Women Can Build’ initiative for the (re)conception of Vocational Training towards a construction industry with equality, through three pillars: education, raising awareness and dissemination of female talent working on construction sites.

For more than 3 years, the consortium of this Erasmus+ project formed by 7 entities from Spain, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal managed to obtain more than 100 testimonies from women, survey 500 teachers and more than 60 experts in the sector on the situation of these professionals, train more than 50 women and exceed 150 press impacts.

These and other initiatives, which offer women the opportunity to be part of a sector with great expectations for professional growth, contribute to the increase in the number of women employed in construction, which now exceeds 11 %.

In order to continue with this trend, the joint entity is once again committed to the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union to lead the project ‘Women Can Build LatAm’ in which, together with 5 other entities from Spain, Italy, Argentina and Chile, it aims to transfer the results of the first initiative (specifically to Latin American countries) and exchange information on the drivers of the employability of women in the sector in previous stages that affect the field of education and career guidance.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.