ENGIE and SUEZ welcome Omani female students to their sites to promote engineering careers marking International Women’s Day

Thirty students from Sultan Qaboos University and Caledonian University participated in sites visits organized by ENGIE and SUEZ, as part of the ‘Girls on the Move’ Week. Hosted every year by the French association ‘Elles Bougent’ (i.e. ‘They Move’) to mark International Women’s Day, this week aims to promote diversity and the role of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

ENGIE and SUEZ have both been long-term partners of the Sultanate, respectively in the areas of power, water and waste management. As part of their engagement towards training & education and to mark International Women’s Day, they jointly invited thirty Omani female students from Sultan Qaboos University and Caledonian College of Engineering to visit facilities they operate and to meet women engineers.
The young students were able to visit Barka municipal waste engineered landfill operated by SUEZ, as well as Barka 4, the Sultanate’s largest water desalination plant, owned by a consortium that includes, among others, ENGIE and SUEZ.

The visits were organized as part of the 4th edition of the ‘Girls on the Move’ Week, which aims to expose young women to the diversity of professional opportunities in technical industries. Encouraging young ladies to enter these fields is the ambition of the French association ‘Elles Bougent’, of which both ENGIE and SUEZ are members.

During the site visits, the students had the opportunity to discover and understand how the SUEZ and ENGIE’s teams operate the installations. They also had an opportunity to meet and network with female engineers working on the site, to discuss their role at the plants and their career paths.

“For ENGIE, giving young local women the opportunity to discover the energy industry is important for two reasons: first, because, as a regional player, we want women to be part of the localization of jobs in our industry. Second, because, globally, ENGIE has been actively promoting gender diversity and women empowerment, with ambitious targets, including that 50% of the ENGIE managers will have to be women by 2030. When I see all this positive energy, enthusiasm and commitment of all these girls students who have chosen engineering and science to build their future , I am confident that girls will be part of this changing world”.’, commented Florence Fontani, EVP, Communications & ESR at ENGIE Middle East, South & Central Asia and Turkey.

“At SUEZ, promoting gender diversity is at the heart of the Group’s road map. As a regional signatory of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), established by UN Global Compact and UN Women, we aim to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in the region. Today, women represent 18% of our executive employees in Middle East and we are pursuing our action plan to increase the number of women in our teams.
The integration of local population is also an integral part of our Human Resource policy for the region. Today in Oman, for example, we have more than 48% Omanis in our workforce and we are progressively working on increasing this number”, commented Lemjed Bouzekri, Human Resources Director for SUEZ Middle East & Central Asia.

ENGIE has been present in Oman since 1995 and is responsible for the operation and maintenance of plants producing approximately 50% of Oman’s electricity and desalinated water. It delivers these essentials by operating and maintaining 6 power plants and 2 desalination plants.

SUEZ has a 14-year presence in Oman in both water and waste management. SUEZ oversees the operation of 4 engineered landfills which receive 60% of Oman total waste production. The group has also built two desalination plants and one wastewater treatment plant and currently operating and maintaining 2 of those plants.