ESIGELEC hosted the meeting of the regional delegation on 17 January, attended by NAE. The day’s agenda included: defining how the delegation would operate, office matters, orientations and establishing the 2013 action plan. It was rounded off with a Happy Hour.

The meeting was chaired by Christophe Martin, a regional delegate of Elles bougent and Manager of the Labour Relations Department, Space Engines Division, at Snecma (Safran Group), and was attended by female mentors and partners.

Action campaigns for the new Elles bougent delegation in Normandy have already been scheduled with NAE. For instance, they will be taking part in the Carrefour des metiers careers event in Vernon, and the Elles bougent mentors will be talking about their careers to girls in secondary schools.

As part of the association’s regionalisation drive, the Normandy delegation is the fourth branch of Elles bougent in France, and benefits from the support of a network for the first time. To date, this delegation includes 14 mentors working at 5 different companies: Safran Group (Aircelle, Snecma,) EDF (Lower Normandy directorate), Renault, Total and EADS (Cassidian). They undertake to promote scientific and technical studies, and encourage more women to join their professions. The new delegation also includes a number of partners including 3 secondary schools (LPO Albert Sorel in Honfleur, Lycée Les Fontenelles in Louviers and Lycée Val de Seine in Le Grand Quevilly), ESIGELEC, CESI, INSA, the Local Education Authority, UIMM, Valéo, SNCF, Ineo GDF SUEZ and Thales Air Systems.

There are many businesses in the NAE looking for young women to work in the aeronautical and spatial industries, defence and security in the years to come. Making science careers more attractive to young women can be a good way of solving recruitment problems. Today, only 20% of staff at Safran are women (in France), and on the scale of the whole Normandie AeroEspace network, women only make up 23% of all staff. Overall, only 10% of students on science courses are women.