SAWomEng: South African Women in Engineering

Location

If more women were trained as engineers more solutions would likely emerge for a host of development challenges, including water quality and availability, sanitation, and resource efficiency. However, globally, female engineers make up less than 20% of the engineers and this figure dramatically decreases in developing countries. SAWomEng runs three core programs to attract and retain more females into engineering. As part of its GirlEng programs, SAWomEng hosts workshops on engineering and career guidance for female high school students. Each student is also provided with a university student who acts as their mentor for the year. The second program is the SAWomEng conference. Since 2005, SAWomEng has run national conferences bring the top female engineering students from around South Africa together to tackle social and engineering problems by finding engineering solutions. Examples of past projects include conceptually upgrade informal settlements using green engineering and sustainable development principles and finding alternative energy solutions for the energy crisis in South Africa. The third program is part of SAWomENg@Network, which is a platform for young female engineering graduates to network, and focuses on career development, health & reproduction and lifestyle.