Women in trades? Sydney Builder Chick’s building an ‘empire’!

Felicity Pettiford aka Sydney Builder Chick started her company to create an “empire of women” in the construction industry.

Transcript

00:00Hey guys, I'm Felicity Pettiford aka Sydney Builder Chick. I'm 21 years old, I

00:05started my apprenticeship when I was 16. I'm a fully qualified carpenter and

00:08builder. When I first started there wasn't a lot of females on site and I

00:16was the only female in my construction class so breaking that narrative and

00:21allowing females to step outside the comfort zone is so empowering to other

00:26women. When other people see it then they want to do it. Sydney Builder Chick

00:32is a platform and a business. It's also a platform for women to communicate,

00:37connect, network with so much more than just a business and a community. It's an

00:42empire of women. So the biggest misconception that tradies get are that

00:49we're high school dropouts which is not true. We're well educated and we have a

00:53couple of years advanced comparing to what you shouldn't do or people in the

00:56office do. I was diagnosed with dyslexia at a really young age and I really

01:01struggled to do basic reading skills and I figured staying in school probably

01:06wasn't the best alternative for me and I tried doing other things so I took

01:10construction as an elective and I absolutely loved it, really creative with

01:14my hands so that's when I started pursuing an apprenticeship. We need more

01:22support in the industry. We're lacking of skills because we haven't got the

01:26support. We haven't got the right skills in the industry to pass on that

01:31to the next couple of people so I think if we have more people in the industry

01:34that are supported throughout their apprenticeship and being a builder,

01:38having a business, all that side of things can definitely pass on your

01:42skill set to other apprentices that come through.