It is encouraging to see more women are entering trades such as engineering traditionally dominated by men.

This message was shared by the Presi­dent of the Fiji Institute of Engineers (FIE), Vijay Krishnan, during a network­ing dinner, celebrating International Women in Engineering at the Albert Park Pavilion in Suva.

Mr Krishnan believes increasing the par­ticipation of women is not only required in the professional area but also in the vocation areas through training at educa­tional institutions.

“There are a lot of industries that are re­cruiting women,” he said.

“Women are entering trades like weld­ing, building, contracting, and all the harder areas of work in which men gener­ally used to be represented.”

He adds women in engineering have dem­onstrated that through hard work and per­severance, they can attain their goals and ambitions.

“Improving themselves, their academic qualifications, their experience, their em­ployment and basically trying to narrow the gap between the menfolk,” he said.

“Our profession in particular is tradi­tionally male dominated. It is difficult for ladies but given their perseverance, we can see tangible changes coming in.

“And myself personally and my firm, in­cluding members of FIE, we’re all very proud to be supporting such a move and encouraging wherever we can.”

Mr Krishnan believes women are in a very powerful position in the engineering field to also address ethical issues relating to the industry.

He said women working in the industry also help change the mindset of the men­folk.

“Women have different thinking and they can act as a catalyst in introducing chang­es that can improve the ethical behaviour and ethical standards among all the work­force or the professions,” he said.

The institution is encouraging more women to take up engineering and also calling on employers on provide equal op­portunities and responsibilities to women in engineering.

FIE is the locally-recognised body repre­senting Engineering professionals in Fiji.

The objectives of the institution is the ad­vancement of the science and profession of engineering.

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