Changing the Image of Construction

As a modern thinking site team, we wanted to try and change the image of construction and show everybody that the construction industry is no longer the stereotypical environment that everyone is led to believe – and hopefully encourage more women into the industry by showing them that construction workers can have open discussions on any topic.

Period Poverty is currently trending in the UK: it is a major problem for women and girls that are homeless or on a low income, and when you think about it, if you are struggling to provide food, menstrual products are not always a priority.

A large percentage of people in the UK are only one pay day away from homelessness or serious financial struggles – so although the construction industry is currently predominantly male, this issue could very well affect their wives, girlfriends, sisters, aunts and children at some point in their life, so getting men thinking and talking about the problem openly was fantastic.

We contacted The Crimson Wave, a charitable organisation trying to combat period poverty, to enquire about hosting a period packing party on site. We took part in a cycle challenge to raise funds for The Crimson Wave, everybody got involved ranging from Directors to Scaffolders, even our client Wigan Council. We also managed to get our Head Office involved and had collection boxes for sanitary products for use on the planned packaging party. We managed to pack over 1000 care packs for women in need which will be distributed throughout Greater Manchester. The packing party itself was a massive success, everybody has commented on how they enjoyed it.

We had a massive range of people involved, including local residents. Although we were working on this initiative with Crimson Wave, we also invited the Brick who are a charity working with homeless women in Wigan.