History
Dunfermline Women’s Training Centre was established in 1990 as a positive action initiative in order to train women who experienced real difficulty in obtaining work, so that they could rejoin the work force or take up further training opportunities.
Elected members agreed that this was an exciting idea and a realistic goal. Reaching this goal would be the only real hope for many women in the area who had not achieved at school for various reasons, or whose confidence was low after some years at home caring for family.
Despite steep competition across Europe for this type of project, 45% of funding was secured from the European Union (EU), which recognises the need for and encourages special measures like these to help tackle the inequalities which women experience in work and training.
Premises were found, after a long search, and converted with the help of an EEC grant and local authority funds. The next hurdle was urging local women to come, try, and enrol. The outreach work done by staff at the early stages was extensive and successful in recruiting women from scattered villages and from the local housing schemes in the centre of Dunfermline. Each year we have many more applicants than places and the need is evidenced time and again.
To date, (and after a few changes to our name!) Fife Women’s Technology Centre is still going from strength to strength. Our success is built upon creating a supportive environment where women can begin to realise their own potential through the development of practical and technical skills.
FWTC still sets it’s goals in attracting women with few or no previous qualifications, who have been out of the labour market for long periods. We take positive action to attract carers, particularly lone parents, black and minority ethnic women and women with disabilities. Our training courses are free and we provide assistance with childcare and travel costs and high levels of personal support to enable women to participate. We currently hold an 80+% success rate in women gaining employment or moving into Higher Education.
Our key priority is to continue to widen horizons and raise aspirations by offering high quality training focussing on non-traditional areas of computing, electronics and IT, with Career and Personal Development. This provides a route into higher level courses and increases access to new and changing areas of the labour market where women remain under-represented.