Inspiring and educating: Women in Gas
To celebrate this year’s International Women in Engineering Day on 23 June, IGEM’s South West and Welsh Sections joined forces to host a Women in Gas event in Newport, Wales.
INWED is a day to celebrate women working in the engineering field and inspire young women and girls to pursue a career in the industry.
This year, IGEM recognised this by hosting its 7th Women in Gas event in Wales where attendees could share their thoughts, grow their knowledge and meet like-minded people.
Welcoming everyone to the event was Welsh Section Chair Thomas James who set the scene for the day ahead and thanked sponsors Wales & West Utilities and the Women’s Inclusion Network.
Then Jodie McEvoy, past Welsh Section Chair, shared further details about INWED and the theme for this year of ‘Together, we engineer’.
She said: “Today is all about working together. Let’s learn, share and educate ourselves so we can contribute to a more inclusive future”
IGEM’s EDI Lead Stacey Churchill then shared a bit about IGEM, its EDI strategy and some of the wins the institution has implemented in the past year.
These include: the creation of a refugee application form, creating a toolkit of resources for organisations, renewal of the partnership with the Women’s Utilities Network (WUN), the success of the most recent EDI survey and many more.
It was then time to hear from Mike Thorne, the Engineering Leaders’ Coach, who looked at bursting the imposter bubble and how to overcome imposter thinking.
He revealed that over 70 per cent of people have admitted to having imposter thinking and believing they’re not worthy of the position they’re in.
He went on to bust just some of the myths and shared some of the tools to overcome them through self-reflection and action.
Next up, there was a panel discussion which featured Nicola Evans, IGEM President, Grant Rogers CEng, Asset Integrity Manager at Wales & West Utilities, and Debra Webb CMIIA, Head of Internal Audit at Wales & West Utilities. They answered questions on inclusion and shared their experiences of working in the industry.
Following a short refreshment break, Mark Freed of Men for Inclusion took to the stage to deliver an interactive presentation on allyship.
Depicting the industry, Mark said: “We have a long way to go for gender equality in this sector. Let’s make this a learning experience for everyone where we are allowed to make mistakes and grow ourselves as human beings.”
He then shared an exercise with attendee involvement to look at the societal expectations of different genders and how we can break that down.
As the event drew to a close, delegates took the opportunity to network with others and finally make their way home.