November 5th marks the first national Women in Apprenticeship Day. But, how many apprentices do you know? And who hires and supports them?
In honor of the day we bring you a few stories to help fill in the gaps. Please click through to each of their inspirational journeys.
Featured Tradeswomen
Training Director, Sheet Metal Workers Local 28
Apprentice Program Field Director, Construction and General Building Laborers’ Local 79
New York City, Local 15 of the International Union of Operating Engineers
New York Carpenter, Local 157
Builder Highlight
The Goren Group
Lela Goren is the founder of Goren Group, a real estate development company that creates buildings that make change and foster community.
Today, her vision draws from a blended background – a builder and a catalyst, in equal measure. Her buildings combine public and private, old and new, rural and urban, art, commerce and community. In 2012, she purchased an abandoned historic Power Plant in Yonkers and is redeveloping it as The PowerHouse, a gathering place for art, culture and renewal. A few miles away is The Plant Manor, a turn-of-the-century estate that houses retreats, film shoots and events. In 2015, Goren Group is leading the redevelopment of the former Bayview Correctional Facility. This former women’s prison will be transformed into the Women’s Building, a hub for the global women’s movement.(See below for more details) Read Lela Goren’s Full Bio
Visionary Project
On October 26, 2015, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the Empire State Development awarded NoVo Foundation, in collaboration with Goren Group, rights to restore and redevelop the former Bayview Correctional Facility, located at 550 West 20th Street, New York, into The Women’s Building. The medium-security women’s prison will be reclaimed by girls’ and women’s rights groups working to create a world free from violence, poverty, and injustice. The Women’s Building will serve as a hub for the women’s movement, service providers, and the community. The Women’s Building stands for what’s possible when the potential of girls and women is nurtured, rather than locked away. Through its very structure and planning, it serves a new kind of justice, one based on collaboration, partnership, fairness and equity.
Reborn as a hub of activism and engagement, The Women’s Building will offer social justice leaders the resources and support they need to drive critical change. It’s a workspace – and more. It will rise as a vertical neighborhood, designed to spark serendipitous interactions, build partnerships, create networks and grow sustainable solutions. It will bring diverse organizations together, as they envision and build a better world for girls and women, around the globe.
Activists have always embraced collaboration, despite office locations that keep them apart – far-flung, dictated by rent. For NYC, The Women’s Building will change that. With co-located organizations and shared infrastructure, the work inside these walls will improve lives on the outside, with greater creativity and cohesion. It will also pull the outside in, through public lectures, conferences, performances and art. A transformed building, dedicated to a transformed world.