de lille
De Lille with the four teams. Source: City of Cape Town.

Home » No Shovels as Cape Town Celebrates All-Women Road Teams

No Shovels as Cape Town Celebrates All-Women Road Teams

They normally wear overalls and are wielding shovels, but on Wednesday 24 women who repair Cape Town’s roads as part of a new programme put on civvies to be honored by the mayor. The women are part of a growing programme to, as Mayor Patricia de Lille put it, “empower women, achieve gender transformation, and show […]

By SAPeople Staff Writer
07-07-16 09:01
in Fab South African Stuff
de lille
De Lille with the four teams. Source: City of Cape Town.

They normally wear overalls and are wielding shovels, but on Wednesday 24 women who repair Cape Town’s roads as part of a new programme put on civvies to be honored by the mayor.

de lille
De Lille with the four teams. Source: City of Cape Town.

The women are part of a growing programme to, as Mayor Patricia de Lille put it, “empower women, achieve gender transformation, and show that women are equal to men in the workplace”.

The 24 women are from four teams, in Ndabeni, Fish Hoek, Heideveld and Kuils River, created as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme within the transport division of Cape Town city’s government.

In May the city won the Most Innovative Women Training Programme Award at the fourth annual Women in Construction Awards ceremony for the year-old programme.

workers cape town
One of the teams out in the field.

“Not too long ago it would have been unthinkable for women to wield heavy tools and repair our roads,” De Lille said on Wednesday.

“You have shown that women can compete with their male counterparts in physically demanding jobs such as repairing potholes, laying kerbs, cleaning stormwater infrastructure and building sidewalks,” De Lille said.