ASSOCIATIONS
15
IOPSA hosts inaugural
Women’s Day event
By Lorraine Mooi, IOPSA chairperson of the Transformation Committee
Last Women’s Month (August), IOPSA hosted
a long overdue gathering of 30 women
involved in the plumbing industry, grouped
into three tables, each of which included a
wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds.
These included students, plumbers, business
owners and admin staff – not a single man
was in the room.
The idea was to thrash out the issues they face
– and notwithstanding the divergences between
them, each table came up with the same top three
challenges they face. The seating arrangement was
that we had to sit next to a person you didn’t know,
more than anything else this was a networking
event so that we could get to know each other a
little better.
There were three speakers:
• Lorraine Mooi – a female plumber and winner
of Lady Plumber of the Year 2019; IOPSA
Transformation committee Chairperson,
compliance auditor, PIRB Exco member and
IOPSA Border region secretary;
• Vanessa Gouws – a plumbing business owner
who used to work in the insurance industry; and
• Brigitte Schlichting – A German Master
plumber and trainer at the training institute,
GIZ.
The attendees were asked as a table to jointly agree
and name three ‘critical things that women face in the
industry’. All three issues across all three tables were the
same:
• Sexual harassment on site (not necessarily from
plumbers, but on construction sites);
• Lack of support in the industry; and
• Perceptions of women in the industry as being less
professional than men.
Some of the detail included: being actively undermined from
within a male-dominated team, because ‘we are seen as the
weaker sex’; and the creation of scope for intimidation and
sexual advances in a unisex changeroom environment. The
message was that we have added and will continue to add
value to the industry, but we need to push harder to change
certain perceptions about females working in the plumbing
sectors, whatever our role is.
"The ladies in
the industry
should have
a ‘we’ not a
‘me’ mentality
regarding
assisting other
women who
needed it.
IOPSA now intends to tackle these three issues head-on,
initially setting up a focus group to study the specific issues
mentioned and how the industry can tackle them. The
intention is for this event to become an annual event with
report-back on the issues and what inroads have been made
to educate the industry, and ultimately the goal is to morph
into a Women’s Forum for the plumbing industry.
This is about to become a major talking point in the
plumbing industry, IOPSA believes, as a growing number of
women are entering the trade. PA
Each spoke about their journeys that lead to them
being who they are in the industry.
• Lorraine Mooi stated that the ladies in the
industry should have a ‘we’ not a ‘me’
mentality regarding assisting other women who
needed it. But at the same time no one will be
spoon-fed, you must put in what you want to
get out.
• Brigitte Schlichting described the issues in her
work with the training of women plumbers in
Jordan. For these women, being able to have
their own income had changed their lives for
the better – and how society had initially been
resistant. They now found that support for them
had grown.
October 2019 Volume 25 I Number 8
• Vanessa Gouws informed us about her
being on the other side of the fence, being a
plumbing contractor was harder than she had
anticipated, but each challenge was a new
learning curve. She mentioned that that ‘our’
voices needed to be heard.
The IOPSA Women’s Day event attendees.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za