To boldly go where no White Building Services Employee has gone before.
Sally-Ann has been selected from Construction Ambassadors across the UK to accompany ConstructionSkills on a visit to the Kingdom of Bhutan in order to promote careers in construction and the UK construction Industry in general.
ConstructionSkills, the Sector Skills Council for the construction industry, works with the UK construction industry, government and education providers to tackle the high skills needs in the UK by up-skilling the current workforce and promoting careers within construction. It is UK-wide and represents the whole industry from professional consultancies to major contractors and SMEs. Established as a Sector Skills Council in 2003, it is working to deliver a safe, professional and fully qualified construction workforce.
Deborah Hilton Madden, Recruitment and Careers Adviser(North) from ConstructionSkills (pictured above with Sally-Ann) said
“We selected Sally-Ann and White Building Services to represent the UK Industry for several reasons. WBS are a locally based SME however, they are one of the largest providers of training opportunities in the North West with a directly employed workforce of approximately 250 people. Sally-Ann is a good representative of the modern construction industry; a young woman employed in a professional capacity, breaking the pre-conceived notions of men, muck and boots.”
ConstructionSkills was first approached by Dutch development agency SNV in October 2007. SNV was keen to bring ConstructionSkills’ extensive forty year history in skills and training to Bhutan after the country embarked upon a period of development, heralded by the first democratic elections in Bhutan’s history which are being held in March 2008.
Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas between India and China, the Kingdom of Bhutan, a predominantly Buddhist kingdom, is roughly the same size as Switzerland with a population of approximately 750’000. Huge investment is currently being made into developing the country and the Bhutanese government together with SNV wanted to tackle the issue of skilled construction workers head on. SNV funded the ConstructionSkills tour of the Kingdom and hope that it will go some way into establishing similar ways of training and recruiting that the UK enjoys. 
Deborah and Sally-Ann land in Paro and travel to capital city Thimpu. Tourism is restricted in Bhutan in order to minimise the negative effects of tourism on the culture and the environment. Whilst there Sally-Ann and Deborah will travel across the country stopping at Bumthang and Tashigang to reach their destinations of Samdrup Jongkhar and Pheuntsholing, were they will speak to local university students and hold construction based activities based around civil and structural engineering.
Sally-Ann said
“When I got the call from ConstructionSkills to say I had been selected to accompany them to Bhutan I was overwhelmed and got straight on Google to find out where Bhutan was. I was thrilled to bits when I got the OK from the board at White Building Services to undertake the trip, it really is the opportunity of the lifetime for me. I am so looking forward to learning about the people and the culture and looking at the traditional buildings and methods of construction used in Bhutan.“
Sally-Ann arrives back from Bhutan at the end of April and will be updating the website with a photo diary of her trip.