(Business in Cameroon) - On October 21, 2020, in Yaoundé, Guinness Cameroon presented the strategy it initiated in collaboration with technical universities in Cameroon to increase female talents in the manufacturing sector.  

According to Andrew Ross, managing director of Guinness Cameroon, the strategy falls within the framework of the brewing group’s inclusion and diversity program, the promotion and valorization of women in manufacturing jobs specifically. “One of the ways we chose to implement the program is to launch an internship program exclusively for the best female students of Cameroon's technical universities. Our ambition is to reduce the female talent gap in the sector,” the executive added.  

“We focused on the gender aspect because we have 400 employees, 25% of whom are women. But in our production areas, they make up only 12% of the staff there. In the last two months, we visited four (4) Cameroonian universities with over 10,000 female students, representing 40% of the student population, according to the information we received. However, it seems that something happens between the time they finish their studies and the time they enter the professional world,” explained Hervé Ngamaleu Yossa (Guinness Cameroon’s Chief human resources officer) explaining why technical universities were targeted.  

In the framework of the strategy, Guinness Cameroon signed internship agreements with the National Advanced School of Engineering (Yaounde), the University Institute of Technology (IUT) of Douala, the Engineering School of the Catholic University of Central Africa (UCAC-ICAM), and the National School of Agro-Industrial Sciences (ENSAI) of Ngaoundéré.

Guinness Cameroon informs that to materialize the agreement, it has already selected 25 student engineers whose internship started on October 21, 2020, and will last six months.

It indicates that in the coming quarter, it will sign another internship agreement with business and management schools all around the Cameroonian territory.

S.A.