On Thursday, 8th of June, AVICON completed the second phase of the project “Overcoming gender stereotypes when choosing a profession in aviation”.

The event that is supported by Skopje’s municipality Karposh and was intended for the 9th graders from this county, started at 10 o’clock at the University of Skopje.

Over 50 students from different schools attended this workshop which was hosted by our president Natasha Mijat Krstevska.

After the introduction, the video that was exclusively designed for this workshop with assistance from the Youth Educational Forum was presented to the students. The length of the video was 20 minutes, in which four different professionals tell their story. A female helicopter pilot, a female aircraft maintenance engineer, a male flight attendant and a female air traffic controller started this quest of overcoming the gender stereotypes in their professional environment.

The video is available below.

After the video, Ms. Krstevska, an air traffic controller from Skopje International Airport gave the students a presentation on the vocational possibilities in aviation and a historical overview of the aviation stereotypes.

The special guest to this workshop was Ms. Katerina Kajstorovska, our Macedonian first female commercial pilot. She shared her testimony on becoming a pilot and was more than thrilled by the fact that she was the only one but now there are five Macedonian female pilots already.

After her, Ms. Biljana Everette took the floor as a skydiver but also as Secretary General at the Aeronautical Federation of Macedonia. She explained the aeronautical sports option and shared the amazing result that our paragliders achieved just a few weeks ago: third place in the world.

Before taking the break all the students filled a question form related to the aviation professions and their future possible interest.

The second part of the workshop was reserved for the presentation of Ms. Dora Popova Uzunovski, a psychiatrist and a career counselor. She held a presentation on male vs. female cognitive capabilities and their implementation in possible aviation professions. Her part of the demonstration finished with an aptitude test for all students.

After this, a panel discussion was opened, joined by another female pilot Ms. Stefanija Dimeska, who works at the Aeroclub Skopje.

All of the female aviation professionals mentioned were more than open to answer all the questions our eager students had.

A BIG GRATITUDE to all of the people and institutes involved. This was a true success.