WISH Northern Ireland: Cultivating New Connections

WISH NI regional group had a fantastic Spring Event on 28^th May, sponsored by Cardo:CTS and hosted by Danske Bank in their incredible Headquarters overlooking Belfast City Hall. 

We shared stories on career journeys into working in and alongside social housing and interesting Q&A session with a full and engaged audience. We are also delighted to have Cardo:CTS as a sponsor and their Managing Director, Serena Hyland also join our WISH NI Board and we look forward to growing our Board.  

It was interesting to hear from a wide range of women on what they love about working in the sector, and about who has inspired them in their careers.  Some participant comments included:

“Clare McCarty and Carol McTaggart were two fantastic female leaders I admired when at Clanmil”  

“My family encouraged me to get involved in construction family business and make the change from a legal career and Lyn Carvill of Women’s Tech is a real inspiration”   

“I admired my first manager Colette Moore, she was a lovely person and great energy and a young mum at the time and a great inspiration”. 

Participants also spent time engaging on issues important to them and some great practice was shared on female staff lone working, particularly from members Ark Housing, who regularly brief their teams on finding a safe meeting place. They also wanted more support on confidence building and making new connections. 

We were delighted to share the wide range of online supports for members of WISH in those areas along with the brilliant recruitment page for new career opportunities and supporting one another to unlock solutions to key sector challenges.

We are also delighted to welcome new faces from housing providers, construction and banking sectors. We welcome organisations working in all areas of social housing to our future events.

All agreed more opportunities to come together would be welcomed, and one piece of feedback was “an event unlike any other, came back feeling inspired and energised with lots of new connections, can’t wait for the next one”

If you'd like to find out more about the Northern Ireland region and our events please visit our regional page.

We look forward to seeing you at a future event!

Agnes Crawford, WISH Northern Ireland Chair.