Hard Hatted Women receives Women in Apprenticeships grant

The Suburbanite
Tue Aug 11, 2009, 08:30 AM EDT

Cleveland, Ohio -
Hard Hatted Women (HHW), a Cleveland-based non-profit organization that trains and helps women and girls explore, pursue and excel in careers in high-wage, high-skill industries, was awarded a grant renewal from the Women in Apprenticeships and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) program through the U.S. Department of Labor. Also, HHW was selected as a host for seven AmeriCorps VISTA members, who commit to a year of national service to support anti-poverty programs.

The one-year WANTO grant is for more than $160,000 and allows the organization to continue the statewide Women in Ohio Roadways Construction project. The project promotes an outreach initiative that leverages training and community resources to ensure local participation in the building of transportation projects in Ohio. Strong partnerships with the Ohio Department of Transportation, building trade unions and contractors support the project’s successful achievement of helping more than 200 women enter and succeed in the industry.

“These federal investments in Hard Hatted Women will make sure that the talents and skills of both women and men contribute to the revitalization of our region and state,” said Terri Burgess Sandu, executive director, HHW. “HHW is well positioned to help make Ohio a leader in connecting low-income and unemployed women to both the emerging green economy and infrastructure jobs created by the national recovery program.”

The AmeriCorps VISTA members will be assigned to several different HHW programs. Three VISTA volunteers will work on Tradeswomen TOOLS, a program that has been extended to serve Cuyahoga, Lorain and Trumbull counties and is designed to link women to opportunities in high-wage skilled careers. A Green Jobs Coordinator and a Youth Education Coordinator will help women and girls learn about a wide variety of career paths. Two VISTA members will support HHW outreach and communications.“Filling these positions will vastly increase our ability to not only provide outreach, education, mentoring and leadership skill training for women, it will allow us to work more closely with employers and industry leaders in targeted fields,” said Burgess Sandu.

HHW is playing a unique role in ensuring equitable access to jobs created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the agency’s selection as a VISTA host was made possible by the act.

“The grant from the US Department of Labor as well as the VISTA volunteers will help HHW to effect change statewide,” said Burgess Sandu. “Serving in partnerships with employers and government agencies throughout Ohio allows us to ensure women benefit from new jobs in construction, manufacturing, and in the emerging green economy.”
AmeriCorps VISTA is the national service program designed specifically to fight poverty. Founded as Volunteers in Service to America in 1965 and incorporated into the AmeriCorps network of programs in 1993, VISTA has been on the front lines in the fight against poverty in America for more than 40 years. www.americorps.gov

Hard Hatted Women (HHW) is a non-profit organization with over 30 years of experience empowering women to achieve economic independence by creating workplace diversity in the trade and technical fields. With a focus on training, education, and policy initiatives, HHW works to create systemic change through community, state, and national channels. For more information on HHW, contact: Hard Hatted Women, 4220 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44103. Phone: (216) 861-6500. Fax: (216) 861-7204. E-mail: Info@HardHattedWomen.org. www.hardhattedwomen.org.

http://www.thesuburbanite.com/news/business/x262902882/Hard-Hatted-Women-recieves-Women-in-Apprenticeships-grant

Hard Hatted Women hopes to snag jobs from Obama construction program

Hard Hatted Women hopes to snag jobs from Obama construction program
by Alison Grant/Plain Dealer Reporter
Saturday December 06, 2008, 4:03 PM

John Kuntz/The Plain Dealer

Carpenter Rocky Hwasta, president of Allied Cleveland Tradeswomen, works Friday at the construction site of the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center in Cleveland.The poor economy and a loss of private donations are battering Hard Hatted Women, an organization that promotes women in high-wage, blue-collar careers.

The group is bracing to lose as much as $225,000 in funding next year, chopping 40 percent off its 2008 budget of $550,000. It's cutting employees and has no money for pre-apprenticeship training.


But Hard Hatted Women is hardly laying down the tool belt.


The Cleveland organization is expanding a pilot project to consult on diversity and sexual-harassment at construction sites. A partnership with the Ohio Department of Transportation helps place skilled tradeswomen in highway construction jobs. And the non-profit group has snagged a coveted federal grant.


Now it's watching for an even bigger prize to emerge -- a New Deal-style, explosion of public construction work proposed by President-elect Barack Obama.


"That's where we want to connect the dots," Executive Director Terri Burgess Sandu said. "How do we get women and girls into those jobs?"


Obama has outlined a plan to rebuild roads and bridges and modernize schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars. The economic recovery plan aims to create 2.5 million jobs by January 2011.


It's important for women to get a foothold in such federal enterprises from the outset, Sandu said. When construction gets an infusion of public dollars, the mechanism for women and minorities to get in on the action has to be in place at the beginning -- when terms of the work are nailed down, studies show.


Elaine Bernard, executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, said any massive undertaking will face the stubborn question of how many women are in the pipeline. Traditionally, it has been few. Women represent about 3 percent of the workers on construction sites nationwide.


"Women in the trades will be hired like anybody else," Bernard said. "The issue is who's coming into the skilled trades?"


Sandu said Hard Hatted Women is slashing expenses so it can survive and continue helping women into non-traditional occupations.


It's laying off three of five staff members and moved out of a restored mansion on Superior Avenue to plainer digs a mile away in the one-time hall of Laborers Local 860 on Prospect Avenue. The move will save about $80,000 in rent over five years.


The budget cuts are meant to make the group viable without foundation support, even though Sandu will submit grant proposals as usual.


"It's not a desperate plea, 'Please give us money or we'll close,' " she said. "We really want to be able to say that we're on ethical and fiscally responsible ground and anything that our foundation partners can give will allow us to build more."


Hard Hatted Women had several tumultuous years after founding Director Kathy Augustine was ousted amid claims that the group's finances were in disarray and it was losing focus as a champion of tradeswomen.


The group on its Web site describes the discord as the growing pains of a grassroots collective evolving into a more mainstream, professional organization.


Hard Hatted Women has hung onto outside support even as other donors have faded away.
In 2007, it was one of three groups nationwide to win a two-year Department of Labor grant -- $300,000 -- for a "women in non-traditional occupations" program.


This year, it was one of 21 new recipients of United Way funding in Greater Cleveland. It was awarded $60,000 annually for three years to support training of low-income women.


"They have encountered some bumps along the way," said United Way Executive Vice President Bill Plato. "But they have a generally good track record."


http://www.cleveland.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/hard_hatted_women_hopes_to_sna.html