EDL encourages girls to try a career in trades

In Term 3, a team from EDL visited Dapto High School in New South Wales to encourage female senior students to take up non-traditional careers either through electrical and mechanical trades or STEM opportunities.

EDL Global Engineering Manager Helen Burns, Operations Supervisor Rebekah Utting and apprentices Hollie Hasiuk and Alkira Lazaro attended the school assembly, and later hosted a group discussion with nine girls who wanted to learn more about a trade or STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) career.

Ms Burns said since 2011, EDL has been recruiting Dapto High School students into apprenticeships at the company’s nearby National Maintenance Facility at Appin.

“We always get a good response from Dapto High School, and we take the extra time to speak to the young women to get them thinking about non-traditional career options in mechanical and electrical trades or other STEM professions,” she said.

Ms Lazaro and Ms Hasiuk are former students of Dapto High School, having only left one and two years ago respectively.

Ms Hasiuk said she was nervous when she took on work experience with EDL last year, when she was in Year 12, however found everyone at EDL to be very accommodating.

“I’m a first-year apprentice now … I’ll go on to finish my trade and afterwards I have so many opportunities within EDL.”

Interviews with EDL employees and Dapto High School staff and students can be viewed in Dapto High School: Model of Workplace Engagement—the video below by Skillsone TV, courtesy of the New South Wales Department of Education.

EDL thanks Dapto High School for the opportunity to participate in this video.

Photo: Flying the flag for careers in STEM (from left to right) – EDL Operations Supervisor Rebekah Utting, Global Engineering Manager Helen Burns, and apprentices Alkira Lazaro and Hollie Hasiuk