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Johannesburg - Women still face disrespect and disregard in the home builders industry, disadvantaged by the majority of technical skills still being dominated by men, a senior official said in an interview with News24.
"Quantity surveyors, the bulk of them are still male. Engineers, the bulk of them are still male. That is the issue right now," National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) COO Thandiwe Ngqobe Ngqobe says.
"You find issues there because they come with the thinking that 'Well, you don't know what you are talking about. I've been in this industry a long time so just sit there and I'll tell you what you are supposed to be doing', despite the fact you [the woman] could be the project manager."
These were the issues women faced on a daily basis on the ground, disrespected and disregarded for the knowledge they had. As a result, it became difficult to manage their projects effectively.
"You start doubting yourself, 'I'm not an engineer. I know about construction but that is all I know but I may not know some intricacies'," Ngqobe says.
‘It’s just wrong’
When Ngqobe took up her position at the NHBRC in 2013, it struck her that the majority of home builders were men.
"I just thought it's wrong. It can't be, and with my background I knew there were women who were operating within the industry, in construction generally, because I had interacted with them before. All they need is that boost to get to a certain level so that they are able to compete in the industry," she says.
"It was in 2014. We are celebrating 20 years of democracy, so maybe let's get 20 women who come from different backgrounds within construction, and empower them and see how those women can grow and contribute to the industry.
Women empowerment programme
This was where the idea of the NHBRC's Women Empowerment Programme was born. After looking at different options, the NHBRC teamed up with the Gordon Institute of Business Studies (GIBS) and have been working together on the programme ever since.
"With the first 20 we didn't go public because it was something we were starting, so we thought 'OK, we've got a database of women who are in construction' here in the NHBRC. We also have a relationship with South African Women in Construction," she says.
"We asked them to give us their database, we had a criteria. We went with women with at least R300 000 worth of turnover and not more than R10m turnover, and women who had been in business for about three years."
Once a month they would have a block study week where they attended lectures, and interacted with each other and experts in the industry. After going through that programme for five months, they were attached to mentors, professionals doing well in the industry.
As the programme became more publicised, it drew the attention of Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
"The minister then asks about the programme and says 'Why are you only putting through 20 women? I want 100 women'," Ngqobe says.
"The good thing, since the NHBRC is a national institution, we've got different provincial offices so we utilised those provincial offices to target women-owned businesses that operated within the industry, to get us at least a list of 10."
"We got those lists, we sat down with GIBS, and we got to 80. We got close to 600 applications. It was insane."
Mentorship teams
The structure of the programme was then changed with the help of GIBS. The institute got in touch with those who had passed through its doors to form part of the mentorship teams for the programme. This year's programme was expected to finish in the middle of this month.
"We want these women to work within the industry of home-building, within the context of human settlements, so we also took them through training with regard to NHBRC, with what we would like to see with homebuilders," says Ngqobe says.
"What we do to mitigate the risk, we inspect the houses at different stages of construction. We monitor you and see if you have learned anything from what we have put you through."
The first 20 women who went though the programme have already completed their NHBRC-specific training, with the remaining 80 women to complete the same course once the coaching and mentorship programme is complete.
Given work
The council's intention is to meet with provincial MECs and heads of departments so the women who had passed through the programme, and for the impact of the training to be seen, be given work, "even if its five houses to build".
"We need to see it through. It can't end with training, we have to expose them to opportunities of work so that if there are things we need to correct, we correct them," she says.
When the council exited the lives of the women who had gone through the programme, they wanted to be sure that if they did not succeed, they could only look at themselves.
"We don't want you to give them work squarely on the basis of being women. We want you to give them work because they are capable," Ngqobe says.
Earlier this year, the programme won the award for the most innovative training programme at the 3rd annual Women in Construction Awards.
