By Kingsley Adegboye

Determined to take professional women engineers in Nigeria to greater heights, the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria, APWEN, has brokered a partnership deal that would ensure placements of upcoming female engineers in manufacturing companies when they need to undergo internship in engineering.

The partnership deal which is further aimed at creating job opportunities for the female engineers after graduation, is between APWEN and Unilever Nigeria Plc.a frontline manufacturer of household items. APWEN is a division of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, NSE.

The President of APWEN, Mrs. Nnoli Akpedeye who spoke when the group visited the Agbara plant of Unilever, explained that the industrial visit was undertaken by the female engineers to understand the engineering processes in the manufacturing company.

Mrs Akpedeye who is a fellow of both the NSE and Institute of Civil Engineers declared; “we are at Unilever to appreciate engineering work going on in the company. Also, we are here to find ways of partnering and collaborating with the company to further the profession and to encourage females into the profession.

For Unilever, we want to be sure first of all, that the female engineers in this organisation are able to attain their own potentials and able to achieve commanding heights in their profession in this organization”.

“ Secondly, we want to form an alliance with Unilever with regards to introducing women into the engineering profession.

From this visit, we have come to understand that there are opportunities for female engineers here. Apart from full time employment for female engineers, we are told that there are vacancies for internship for female engineers. We will now find out from them how we can take advantage of these internships. May be this will assist them to get full employment in the company in the future. We are also here to introduce our programme on arousing girl-child interest in engineering, an initiative we launched in 2013. We are already talking to the company on the internship offer,” she said, adding that there is a need to give female engineers more opportunities in the company.

The Manufacturing director of the company, Mr Doyin Ashiru, an engineer, said his organisation is currently discussing the possibility of having a programme towards developing the female engineers in terms of giving them exposure. “As soon as the system is put in place, approved by APWEN and our organisation, then we will commence. We see this as our own contribution to the society. Unilever gives equal opportunities to both males and females,”. Ashiru noted.