On Thursday 07th of March 2019 at Nobleza Hotel, Kicukiro in Kigali city, women working at Rwanda Energy Group together with the Management of REG celebrated the International Women’s Day.
This day which is globally celebrated on 08th March, 2019 was celebrated earlier to allow Managers to attend the National Leadership Retreat that is slated from 08th to 12th March, 2019.
The REG celebrations themed “empowering REG women to energize Rwanda”.
Addressing participants that attend REG celebrations, the CEO of RDB, Hon. Claire Akamanzi shared her experience as a woman who is in the top level leadership of the country.
Hon. Akamanzi urged women to exploit opportunities that were put in place by Government of Rwanda to strive for positions of leadership across sectors. “We should never limit our ambitions just because we think we have so much responsibilities” she said.
She encouraged them to take advantage of the conducive political will to promote gender equality and equity and advocate for their needs.
“Men don’t always know the experiences that women have. So you should be the ones to champion for what is good for women and do not wait for men to think about you. We should be able to articulate the challenges we have and be able to find solutions for them.” she added.
The CEO of REG, Eng. Ron Weiss, said that women are greatly supporting the company's development despite many responsibilities they have at home.
“I really want to thank you for the support that you are giving the company. I know it’s not easy to wake up in the morning, prepare something for the children, arrange the house, go to the office and deal with so many issues that you have been tasked to conduct, then you need to go back home, do the shopping, etc. We really appreciate the efforts that you’re always making to support the company” he said.
REG CEO also called all stakeholders to double effort to facilitate women engineers access the labour market, more specifically in the energy sector. He also mentioned that REG is about to build a new hydropower plant where staff will only be women.
“Nyabarongo II Hydropower Plant which is going to be built, will only be operated by women” he said, adding that women are capable like men, to not only compete for jobs in the energy sector but also strive for high positions in the sector.
In Rwanda, the Energy sector in Rwanda still has a small number of staff women. This is due to the country’s historical and cultural background which discouraged women involvement in the technical works. Despite the current political will in Rwanda and Government efforts to promote gender balance in all sectors, the energy sector still has a very low rate due to its complicity of mandate where women were not engaged in electricity manoeuvring before. As of today, REG women make up approximately 18% of the total staff.
In a bid to be able to reach the Rwandan Government targets of 30% women representation at all levels, Rwanda Energy Group has put in place a special committee in charge of establishing the program to ensure the gender mainstreaming in this sector.
Among the strategic objectives of this program include the representation of women at all levels of REG management, equal opportunities to promotions, equal access to career development programs as well as ensuring a working environment that is free from any sexual harassment.
