Women’s Dept. offers auto mechanic’s course

Anyone who owns a motor vehicle knows that a good mechanic is worth his weight in gold. But does a mechanic always have to be a him? The Department of Women’s Affairs is betting that fixing a car is not dependant on whether you carry an X or Y chromosome. They’re offering a special course for women, in cooperation with the ITVET Automotive Lab, formerly the CET building on St. Thomas Street, to make it happen. According to D.W.A.’s human development coordinator, Icilda Humes, the idea is to get women to recognise that they do not need to limit themselves to traditional skills.

Icilda Humes, Human Development Coordinator, D.W.A.
“One of the criticisms that we have received over the years is the fact that most of the skills training programme that we offer tend to be more traditional, more tradition based and the real reason for that is because we based the skills training programmes that we offer on the requests that women make who come into the office and despite all the achievements that we have made with respect to gender equality in our country, there is still the perception that vocational trade or non traditional skills are for men. And basically the requests that keep coming into the office are for cake decorating programmes, sewing programmes and so over the years we have basically had to fill that need.”

Jacqueline Godwin
“Since the course was offered just how many women have taken up on that offer?”

Icilda Humes
“Well, we have had several requests, we just started to advertise for it last week in the newspapers and we have had several phone requests but we have not had that many women coming in.”

“It is not necessarily just for women who own an automobile although they will be learning about their vehicle and I am hoping that that will minimize the amount of visits that they make to their individual mechanics but it is also for women who are perhaps looking at this for entrepreneurial development. We would definitely like to see more women get into the mechanics field in our country.”

The three month comprehensive women’s mechanic course starts on May eighth. Classes will be offered on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from five-thirty to seven-thirty. Cost is ninety dollars. For more information, contact Icilda Humes at telephone numbers 227-3888 or 227-7397.