What works about Girls at Work
Feb. 18—The sign on the workshop wall hammers it home: "Never forget how wildly capable you are."
In a collage of photos, 8- and 9-year-old girls in orange work boots are holding power tools and smiling. "Together they built a life they loved," the message in the middle says.
At Girls at Work in Manchester, the kit and instructions are simple: Take pre-cut lumber, power screwdrivers and sanders. Add encouragement, problem-solving and coaches who know what it's like to be underestimated, overlooked or labeled. Mix in girls who may not have a haven or a dependable home but here find a world dedicated to them.
"They're focused as soon as they get in that workshop," said Linnea Chruscielski, director of operations at the Girls at Work after-school program on Bedford Street. "We tell the girls, 'No matter what's going on at school or at home, this place is for you. This time is for you.'"
The fledgling carpenters take home pegboards, bookshelves and step stools with hidden drawers they assemble like 3D puzzles. And they leave with more enduring intangibles too, like confidence and self-esteem.
"Our focus is empowerment," said Elaine Hamel, a general contractor and the program's founder. "There isn't one other program where girls learn to use power tools."
Hamel discovered she liked to tinker and fix things while working at a day care center.
"Society has a pretty low bar for girls. Our bar is pretty high, and they want to reach it. Our focus is helping them believe they can do anything they want to do."
Reaching that bar can pay big dividends. The skills the girls learn are in high demand, helping them gain traction in careers where women have traditionally been underrepresented.
Building hope, confidence
In a culture glued to social media and screens for recreation, education, work and validation, making something with one's hands comes as a welcome refuge from the chaos of the outside world. For the girls, it provides an ego boost that comes with the master of skills once considered the exclusive domain of boys.
Kaylee Richard, 16, a junior at Manchester Memorial High School, is teaching at Girls at Work after being a Girl at Work herself. More than preparing her for a trade, she says, the experience inspired her to pursue a degree in psychology. She remembers being 8 and learning to construct a peg board, a step stool, a bookshelf and a lemonade stand, which seemed like momentous accomplishments.
"I thought I was the coolest kid around. No one gave us that sense of faith in us," Richard said. Kids at school were impressed or jealous when she produced her handiwork or talked about what she made. "I felt powerful. I thought I was a genius. Guys thought we were lying."
Samantha Grenier, 16, of Goffstown, moved from Manchester after a family crisis hit home. Girls at Work became her oasis, a steadying influence in rocky times. Now she coaches younger girls as a Girls at Work instructor and hopes to become an OB-GYN delivery nurse.
"It was a hard time in my life. I was just so against it in the beginning," Grenier said. The program made her feel capable. Now she hopes to foster the same inner strength "for at least one girl."
"Doing carpentry, there's a stereotype. Men first. Standing up for yourself and confidence are skills you learn here," Grenier said.
"It's centered around building," Richard said, "but you're learning about so much more."
Nuts and bolts of opportunity
When girls arrive "in their own little bubble of uncertainty and self-doubt," the program swiftly vanquishes that mindset and their sense of little choice, Robinson said.
One father, an engineer, witnessed an attitude transformation in his daughter. "She's so fired up about what she's building." It's an excitement they now share.
One graduate Hamel encountered years later had decided to train for a career in construction safety management through a program at Keene State College.
Another took a job at a pet store — where she built cat toys.
"Building is such a game-changer for girls and women," Hamel said. It's a creative enterprise, and "a way to get them excited about education without calling it education."
"We'll do math and they don't realize they're doing math because we're not calling it math," Hamel said.
Inside the converted warehouse in the Millyard, an 8-year-old with a ponytail and wearing shop glasses bears down with an electric screwdriver, attaching a shelf to the pegboard she put together with the care and focus of a cabinetmaker.
"Did you see her just look up and smile? That's what this is about," Chruscieslski said.
In an adjacent workshop, power tools whirr, creating a hum behind bursts of conversation. Much of the time it's quiet, a sanctuary where girls are thinking.
Roughly 20,000 girls have gone through the after-school programs and summer day camps run by Girls at Work. For many, it's a horizon-changer and a window on possibilities they might not perceive at school or home.
An expansion plan
Growing up with five brothers in a neighborhood of mostly boys, Hamel said she learned not to be hemmed in by stereotypes about what girls could or could not do.
After working off and on as a carpenter and renovating houses, she pioneered a kid-oriented, hands-on building program at a summer camp for girls, launched Girls at Work in a barn and progressed to hosting building projects in school parking lots when there was no space inside.
Now Girls at Work offers co-ed team-building exercises to adults in school districts and businesses around New England.
In the past year, Girls at Work conducted all-girls building projects at Parkside Middle School. More than half the participants signed up for a follow-up challenge: constructing a picnic table.
Today, a large, bright room at Girls at Work is being converted into a STEM and computer programming workshop for middle-schoolers, where women engineers will steer hands-on learning and talk about career experiences.
In this way Girls at Work is helping to change statistics.
According to recent data cited by FIRST Robotics of Manchester, only 28% of scientists and engineers in the U.S. are female.
National statistics quoted by BigRENTZ.com, which leases heavy equipment, show that women make up roughly 11% of the construction industry labor force in 2022, yet only 1% of workers on job sites are female.
Almost 87% of women in the construction industry hold office positions. Most work as administrators or executives-in-training. But increasingly, they are estimators, construction managers, architects, engineers, safety experts, business owners and entrepreneurs, according to construction trend surveys.
The overseas market
New Hampshire's Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau reported that women made up 15.2% of the state's construction industry workforce in 2019.
Last school year, the New Hampshire Department of Education counted 5,523 young men and 4,155 young women enrolled in high school career and technical education programs. About 200 females were in general building/construction, which includes carpentry, plumbing and electrical.
This year, Hamel said, Girls at Work is girding its foundation before expanding to schools outside Manchester. By sharing the program through the New Hampshire World Affairs Council, Girls at Work has stoked interest in countries that are now considering developing construction immersion programs for girls.
Ten years ago, three female college professors from Afghanistan came here to observe Girls at Work. Others are coming from Tajikistan, with an eye to creating something similar. Women business and education leaders from Australia and Scotland have shadowed the program, then returned home to emulate it.
Across the U.S., efforts are underway to interest middle and high school girls in construction careers through job fairs, summer camps and guest speakers from the industry. But recruiting teenage girls remains a steep climb — just as challenging as recruiting boys to classes in early childhood and elementary education, according to directors of career and technical programs at New Hampshire high schools.
Boosting egos, opening doors
At Huot Technical Education Center in Laconia, which serves the Lakes Region, the population of girls in building and construction classes hovers at 15% — much less for plumbing and heating. The ratio seems to hold steady from year to year, according to David Warrender, the CTE program's director.
In 2021, five of 34 students in the building construction program were female. Only one of the 38 students in plumbing and heating was a girl.
Some girls take individual classes to learn skills that will prove useful when they have their own homes, according to guidance counselors.
Exposure to the trades and STEM remains a public education focus in New Hampshire, but it's only one segment of Girls at Work's mission.
"We're helping them believe they can do anything they want," Hamel said.
Even for adults, building can be an ego boost and an open door.
"It's like they built the Eif-fel Tower. They're proud of themselves," Hamel said of the construction projects by women. "We're about empowerment. There's your formula."
