Marianela Hernández Valencia Grew up without electricity, “As a child, I grew up in a house without electricity, which meant having to do homework by candlelight,” she says. “It was difficult.” Today she is one of 15 women trying to graduate as one of Columbia’s first ever intake of linewomen in la Ceja, a small town 40 km southeast of Medellín, Colombia’s second-largest city.
A line workers job is to scale towers and transmission lines hundreds of feet into the air in order to install and repair power cables and are also typically first responders after a storm or natural disaster, often leaving them away from home for extended periods of time. The graduates of the program lead by ISA, Latin America’s largest energy transmission company with the training group Tener Futuro Corporation, are all guaranteed a job with one of two contractors, Instelec and Salomón Durán. The students get taught safety, rigging, and knot tying, in a hands on environment.
Only a week after the program had been announced, 723 women had registered with interest. One attendee is, Hernández Valencia, who says, “I’ve always been drawn to electrical work, That feeling you get when you’re able to help switch the light back on and seeing the kids’ faces light up – it’s indescribable.” She was working as a restaurant administrator in Medellín when her partner – a lineman – told her about the recruitment drive, resulting in her application and acceptance into the program. Her teachers say she is quickly becoming a group leader.
Currently there are roughly 2,500 line workers active and an estimated 500 more are needed just to keep up with current electrification demands and there are plans to build between 1,200 and 2,500 km of new power lines by 2025.
Most of the women in the program are mothers, which makes the training very difficult for them. The training on its own is challenging enough, with workers having to carry between 9kg and 13kg on their belt alone. Mental stamina is especially important with Lizarazo Moreno stating, “You need to be able to keep a cool head, especially when something unexpected happens and you’re high up a tower.” The sector seems committed to training women in the future with plans for three training cohorts in 2023 of 20 women each.
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