Apprentice, Davina Kaur, has risen ‘from the depths of depression’ and a failed suicide attempt to being crowned The Best of British Engineering at the recent Enginuity Skills Awards.
The 19-year-old, from Hinckley, Leicestershire, told the ‘virtual gathering’ of industry leaders, sponsors, and nominees on 18 March, including awards host, Steph McGovern, herself a qualified engineer (pictured left), that winning the award was her ‘proudest moment’. When she was nominated, she was working in mechatronics as an industrial robotics engineer at RNA Automation in Birmingham, and is about to start in a new role at Labman Automotive in Middlesbrough.
At the 2021 Enginuity Skills Awards, she secured both the BAE Systems-sponsored SME Apprentice of the Year award, and the The Best of British Engineering award, having undertaken her training via The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) and RNA Automation in the West Midlands.
She said: “It’s down to my apprenticeship that I have come so far. Six months before I started my apprenticeship, I tried to commit suicide. I was extremely low in confidence; I didn’t have many friends, and I couldn’t talk openly like I can now. I was taken out of school and nothing seemed good; then I applied for a summer job at the MTC. I got the job, and as soon as I started, they offered me support, to talk through my issues. I was finishing my course work and project work way before deadlines. They saw that, and sent me on a course on laser-powered fusion – on which I was the only apprentice. There were two people from the Renault F1 team on it. I felt like I was ‘punching above my weight’, but learned a lot.
“When I discovered I would be the first woman on the shop floor at RNA I wasn’t surprised, but was very proud. I am a STEM ambassador, and an advocate for women in engineering. Women can do anything they want.”
Not-for-profit body, Enginuity, describes itself as an organisation that ‘creates skills solutions for individuals, educators, and engineering employers’, using ‘unmatched industry expertise and data’. Its people are ‘engineering specialists, rather than skills and education generalists’.
Ann Watson, CEO of Enginuity, said: “The Enginuity Skills Awards show the power that the sector possesses to get the UK back on the road to recovery – both physical and economic. Empowering people with skills is the most extraordinary privilege – Enginuity is changing lives, and supporting the economy and the entire country by nurturing the skills the nation needs.”