Rosalind Wollen
Honorary Doctorate - 2009
Rosalind Wollen founded and managed the Women's Construction Centre. This is a unique training centre in Sheffield providing on-site training in non-traditional trades for women.
The centre was supported by Sheffield's Hindu Community who offered space in their religious and cultural centre in Burngreave. The Hindu community recognised the value of the project in training Black and Ethnic minority women in non-traditional trades.
In 2004, students restored this building, where women students now learn a range of practical skills including bricklaying, plastering, tiling, joinery, plumbing, electrical work, computer-aided design, painting and decorating, and motor vehicle repair.
From teacher to mechanic, Roz's varied roles have always helped others.
Roz arrived in Sheffield in 1977 and spent two years as a youth worker among rootless young people in the city centre, and a further four years working for Firth Park Council of Churches, as a youth worker on the Flower Estate.
She set up the Girls' Motorcycle Project, teaching the girls to maintain bikes in an environment free of aggressive competition from boys and in 1983, she took a Training Opportunities Scheme course in motor vehicle repair at Handsworth Skill Centre. She went on to set up and work in a women’s garage know as 'Gwendas' and after that became the North of England's first female AA roadside patrol.
From 1991 to 2002 she taught motor vehicle skills in the School of Engineering at Sheffield College, part of a European Social Fund initiative to bring women into engineering. In 2003 Roz became co-ordinator of Women in Non-Traditional Trades and Technology, an initiative of South Yorkshire Women's Development Trust. Roz has given a lifetime of commitment to widening the opportunities of others, and dedicated her own practical skills to the causes of social inclusion, and particularly to empowering women, and opening the door to non-traditional career paths.
