Local female students get inspiring insight at EMA for International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day is to be marked at East Midlands Airport with an event to inspire local female students to consider a career in aviation.
Eighteen Year 8 and 9 students aged up to 14 years and two tutors from Castle Donington College are coming to the airport on Friday 7 March to engage with female employees across the airport and get a great insight into the career journeys of women in aviation, in what is often considered a male-dominated industry.
Castle Donington College is the airport’s closest secondary school, with a playing field backing onto the airfield, creating a high potential for its students to embrace employment opportunities at the airport itself or with other employers based on the airport site. Female MAG colleagues and colleagues from DHL Air will be involved in the day.
Based in the airport’s Aerozone education centre, participants will be given an airside tour, including the airport fire station where firefighter Kate Atkinson will show them around a fire truck and taken on a drive along the runway by Lou Atkinson from Airfield ops. They will also take part in a speed networking session, chat to female airport colleagues, including two Manchester Airport Group (MAG) directors, the airport’s Head of Compliance & Business Resilience, HR Manager and two female pilots from DHL Air.
MAG’s Head of Social Sustainability Marcella M’Rabety said: “We’re always looking at ways to connect local people with the opportunities our airports provide, and to encourage girls and young women to consider aviation as a career in a sector that can be male dominated.
“International Women’s Day gives us an excellent opportunity to do just that and address this year’s theme to take action to empower the next generation—youth, particularly young women and adolescent girls—as catalysts for lasting change.”