The Ministry of Infrastructure launches a pilot project to train bus drivers

The Ministry of Community Development, Territorial and Infrastructure Development in cooperation with UN Women is initiating a pilot project aimed at teaching women to drive buses. This was reported by the Ministry of Infrastructure, UNN writes.

The Ministry of Community, Territorial and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine and UN Women in Ukraine have agreed to launch a pilot project aimed at training women drivers to work in urban bus transportation.

This project, funded with support from Sweden, is designed to respond to the human resource shortage in this area, exacerbated by the full-scale invasion.

The goal of the pilot project is to provide retraining and retraining of female drivers in the field of urban and municipal transport, namely buses. This is the first initiative of the Ministry to address both the shortage of personnel and stereotypes and prejudices about professions. According to the latest data, the shortage of bus drivers in the regions is about 30%, which is about six thousand employees. I am grateful to our partners from UN Women for supporting this idea and for their willingness to implement this ambitious project together

The main goals of the initiative include:

• creating new jobs and developing women's professional skills in the public transport sector, in line with the requirements of Ukraine's transport reform and EU standards;
• increase employment opportunities for women in the passenger transportation industry;
  
•  Implementation of gender equality standards at public utilities in the field of passenger transport.
  

This project is very important to support women who are interested in entering the labor market. It will give them new skills and access to jobs as bus drivers. It is also very important for UN Women that this project involves employers, with whom we work to ensure full equality in the workplace and eliminate discrimination

The project also provides training for women to obtain a driver's qualification card (code 95), which is an official document certifying that bus drivers' professional skills meet European standards.

In addition, the pilot utilities will hold a series of educational events to introduce standards that guarantee women's rights in the workplace and to monitor compliance with these rights.

Based on the results of the monitoring, recommendations will be made and an implementation plan will be developed to ensure equal rights for women in the transportation sector.

Recall

The Kyiv Metro received 450 job applications, most of which were from women. Currently, one woman is studying to become a train driver and plans to start working at the end of this year, as the training is difficult and lasts about 10 months.