On the occasion of International Women’s Day, De Beers extended its partnership with WomEng, an NGO supporting women’s higher education, for a further three years, expanding the reach to cover all four of the countries where De Beers discovers diamonds and placing a greater focus on supporting women and girls to pursue careers in sustainability-related fields.
De Beers said the partnership will play an important role as it strives to achieve its goal to engage 10,000 girls and women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) by 2030, as part of its wider Building Forever sustainability goals.
WomEng is a global, multi-award-winning social enterprise which helps engage and develop girls and women for the engineering and technology industries. The original three-year partnership focused on developing leadership, innovation, well-being and employability skills for women and girls in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Despite challenges presented by Covid-19, more than 2,200 students were reached by the end of 2021 through a GirlEng programme for schoolgirls and a Fellowship programme for women studying engineering and technology degrees at university.
The three-year extension will see programmes expanded beyond southern Africa to reach students in Canada and the UK, as well as beyond university courses to include vocational and skilled trades. There will also be a greater emphasis on future-focused sustainable development topics, such as renewable energies and climate solutions.
Katie Fergusson, Senior Vice President, Sustainable Impact, De Beers Group, said: “Women remain significantly under-represented in engineering and technology fields globally. We are delighted to be building on the success we have already achieved with WomEng, who have been an exceptional partner to work with as we seek to deliver our mutual goals.” Naadiya Moosajee, Co-Founder, WomEng said: “We are ecstatic to continue building on the work we have done through our partnership with De Beers. It takes an ecosystem approach to support diversity, equity and inclusion within the engineering industry and it’s incredible to work with a partner who understands this, and who supports us in developing women and girls for bright futures in the sector.”