Welding guild gains grant to bring women into male-dominated industry

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as few as 4.5% of welders in 2017 were women.

Improving women’s equity in the pipeline to becoming welders is getting new support. The Latinas Welding Guild is one of 14 Indy nonprofits to receive a grant from the United Way of Central Indiana’s Social Innovation fund, which helps support nonprofits develop solutions for community problems.

The welding guild will use the funds to improve resources for support staff and pilot a equitable employment program: to educate employers.

Despite setbacks brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, the welding guild has helped place 10 women into welding job since 2019. Founder Consuelo Lockhart said, “For being so small, we’ve always had to rely on a Plan B, Plan C, Plan D.”

The welding guild is four years old, and the pandemic “really forced us to focus on what is it that we really want to do … what can we actually make happen.”

News 8 met Lockhart two years ago. The welding guild was using space at Arsenal Technical High School. Now, the guild has its own space where it provides the tools women need to break into the male-dominated industry.

“It’s been decades and decades of sexism, racism, ageism, just different layers of harassment and discrimination, and the equitable employment program we’re starting with women,” she said.

The United Way grant is “relief for us because, how are we going to keep going, and we have to figure out different forms of revenue and just keep chugging along.”