A career in civil construction is now on the cards for female high school students after experiencing a day on the job with Higgins in Palmerston North. Twenty-six students from St Catherine’s College, Wellington, and Awatapu College, Palmerston North took to the tools at Higgins’ Palmerston North depot.

The students got behind the controls of a digger, completed a tour through the depot and learned about everyday life as a civil construction worker as part of the 2022 Girls with Hi-Vis (GWHV) campaign.

GWHV events are being held throughout the country this month to help attract more young women into infrastructure careers.
Women already working with Higgins including operations supervisor Lynda Governor, construction labourer DJ Nui-Hinga, and customer and stakeholder manager Chaye Hainsworth also shared their career journey to date and insight into their work experiences with the students.

Higgins’ training and development team Alexcia Dellabarca and Casey McCabe then took the girls through the different pathways into jobs in the civil sector such as the Connexis Gateway programme and Civil Trades Apprenticeships.

This event was the second in a series in the GWHV campaign which involves 15 companies, 30 events, 71 schools and 620 students throughout the country in June.

This year GWHV had a record number of businesses wanting to be involved.

Host companies included HEB Construction, Fletcher Construction, Higgins, Downer NZ, Waiotahi Contractors, Civtec, Fulton Hogan, Watercare Services Ltd, Citycare Water, Nor West Contracting Ltd, CPB Contractors, Genesis Energy, Meridian Energy, John Fillmore Contracting Ltd and Geotechnics.

More information about the GWHV programme can be found here.