Breaking the gender barrier in Emergency Response

Emergency Response auxiliary staff, Kelena Danny is breaking down the gender barrier in Emergency Response at Hidden Valley mine.

The Twenty-nine year old mother of three from Kaisenic Village in Wau, Bulolo, started work at Hidden Valley in 2011 as a Processing Operator at the processing plant. That same year she volunteered to join the mine’s Emergency Response team. Four years on, she has been given a chance to prove her worth in the upcoming Emergency Response Challenge in Madang next week. 

So far she has mastered vertical rope rescue, firefighting, hazardous chemical, confined space and the different components of emergency rescue, something she said was very different from her job in the processing plant where she mainly operates the different circuits to recover gold.

She said as the only female from Hidden Valley to go with the guys, she was looking forward to taking part.

“I’ve been doing what the guys have been doing. When we do mistakes we do push ups and there are no special treatments. They treat me not as a female but as a colleague and gender doesn’t come into play. I am an outgoing person who likes to mingle with colleagues so I fit in well with the team,” she said.

She encouraged other females to join the ER team.

“We’ve talked about gender equality and for men and women doing the same thing without prejudice. In emergencies, we deal with human lives so it includes both male and female to save a life. So I hope women see me as an example and become part of the emergency response team,” she said.

Being a local, her family are very happy that she is involved in the challenge and thanked Hidden Valley management for giving her the opportunity.

Team Captain and Emergency Response Supervisor, Benedict Saun, said it was a very challenging experience for Kelena and was proud to have her in his team.

“ER is considered as a men’s job because of the physical endurance so it was very challenging experience for her. Before we started we encouraged her to take the challenge head on. She’s competent. In theory lessons, she’s good and she’s coming along fine in the physical challenges as well. She is setting the foundation for other female colleagues to join ER. If she can do it, so can they,” he said.

Experienced trainer, Mike Bowron from West Rescue, an Australian based ER training firm who have been preparing the team for the last two weeks said Kelena is doing pretty good and was impressed with her level of commitment.

“It’s good to see women coming into emergency response. The last couple of ER challenges they had a full women’s team from Lihir which was fantastic and Pogera had a woman in their team also so it’s good to see them coming through,” he said.

The 2015 Emergency Response challenge will be hosted by Ramu Nickel in Madang from the 22-25 of this month.