Women In Trades Wednesday- Flora Rivers

Flora Rivers is a carpentry apprentice, and was the hilarious and inspiring 2018 Mitre 10 keynote speaker at the annual WITNZ Getting women into trades conference. 

Currently completing her apprenticeship with BCITO, Flora was inspired to pursue a trade career for reasons a little different to most- tired of being let down by people she was relying on to fix things, she took on the task of learning how to do it herself. 

A generous man named Craig Williams bought her her first toolbox and with his encouragement, Flora took the steps to take on her carpentry apprenticeship- which included moving to New Zealand from her home in Samoa.

She notes this move as one of the biggest challenges she’s overcome, alongside the silent daily battles of strength between the boys on site- “you win some, you lose some!” She says.

Beginning a trade has impacted Flora’s life outside work in that she now sleeps a lot more than usual, explaining herself as being a bit like a “modern day sleeping beauty, who doesn’t consent to being woken by a kiss from a random stranger!”

Flora’s future career goals at present are “to be a better Me than yesterday”, and her advice for others is pretty straight up too- “if you’re gonna do it, be confident that you can do it, because you most definitely can! It’s all about your mindset.”