West Virginia Women Work Inc

West Virginia Women Work, a statewide 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization founded in 2000, supports and advocates for the education, employment and economic equity for all women. Fourteen years ago WVWW began offering a tuition free skilled trades training program, Step Up for Women, at our headquarter office in Morgantown. Today we have expanded to three geographically divergent training sites across the state- North Central West Virginia (Morgantown), the Eastern Panhandle (Martinsburg), and Kanawha Valley (Charleston) manned by a staff with over 25 years of combined experience specializing in placing women in construction trades occupations.  We support these three sites and the headquarter office with a target annual organizational budget of $400,000.

WHAT WE DO: Our Step Up for Women program is a post-secondary, tuition free, eleven week skilled trades training course conducted in West Virginia. The program launched in 2001 and prepares low-income, under trained adult students for construction jobs and helps participants overcome barriers to non-traditional employment. The program combines job-readiness classroom topics, role model and employer interactions, physical conditioning, and hands-on training in carpentry, electrical wiring, and plumbing. Participants can graduate with five industry recognized licenses and certifications. During the training they receive a transportation reimbursement as well as a work clothes, steel toed boots and safety gear. Graduates receive a set of tools to begin their new career with. Through a short training and job placement period, Step Up is able to make a marked difference in the earning power of graduates. 

Our commitment to this goal is demonstrated by the fact that Step Up for Women is currently the only construction training program officially recognized by the WV State Director of the US Department of Labor as a quality Pre-Apprenticeship training program. This is, in part, due to our established partnerships with the registered training programs throughout the state. In addition to entering into signed Partnership Agreements with West Virginia Women Work, apprenticeship representatives take an active role in each of our courses by presenting information about their employment opportunities to the participants in our classrooms, hosting workshops at apprenticeship training centers to demonstrate the work of their trade, and conducting interviews on-site at our training locations. 


WHO: Our Step Up program targets those who often lack the time and resources to pursue post-secondary training. Many are single mothers who are all too often the sole providers for their family. Their employment options are limited to the low-wage service industry. The Step-Up for Women program is a community solution that benefits individuals, families, employers and the state of West Virginia.

WHY: West Virginia Women Work believes that by working collaboratively with agencies, industry partners and foundations and by selecting key interventions we can make a marked difference in raising the earning power of women in our state. With our Step Up for Women program, we are striving to increase the number of women entering high-wage, high-skilled, highway and construction industry occupations. Trades jobs in West Virginia pay an average starting wage that is $3.00 more per hour than the starting wage in traditionally held female jobs. Unlike many traditional jobs, non-traditional jobs offer room for advancement and regular pay raises.