This International Women’s Day, we’re celebrating the significant achievements we’ve reached and continue to build on through embracing equity, in line with this year’s significant and all-important theme.
This year, we give thanks to our members for being a vital force in driving developments such at the IFE Women’s Networking Group and the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) task group. Continuing to lobby change and make further space for women in fire is vital, and with new opportunities underway to continue driving these platforms, we look forward to seeing the future of these legacies flourish.
Hear from our members
In line with celebrating women, we recently caught up with two of our members, Lynsey Seal QFSM CEng FIFireE and Janine Kayode CEng MIFireE, on what it means to them to be women in fire.
Read Lynsey’s interview
Read Janine’s interview
Driving positive change
Women are often under-represented across the fire industry and accelerating gender parity and driving equilibrium is paramount to the IFE. In quarter four of last year, we launched our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion task group that developed a five-year EDI strategy for the IFE setting milestones, key performance indicators and developing activities to drive improvements globally.
In 2021, the institution launched the IFE Women’s Networking Group, building a platform to promote and support females in the fire engineering profession to highlight arising issues within the industry and share best practices. The group continues to connect individuals who wish to promote and support females within the fire engineering profession.
Later this year the IFE headquarters team will also be returning to the Women in the Fire Service National Training and Development Event held in June. Following a successful 2022 weekend, the IFE will run two workshops at this motivational event which aims to encourage attendees to learn new skills and invest in their development. We are also delighted to be sponsoring the Firefighter Rising Star Award at this year’s event which recognises a firefighter who has demonstrated a determination to succeed in their role and who has been an advocate and ambassador on gender equality and empowerment issues.
Efforts and dedication towards encouraging EDI have not gone unrewarded. IFE female membership has increased by nearly 10% since January 2021 and we look forward to working with other EDI groups and build on our network of diversity groups. There is no limited space for positive action and we’re looking forward to working cohesively with other networks, striving towards the same journey and empowering women within the fire sector.
Learn more about the group.