with the team at site
Nermin Saad’s life turned around when her husband took a job in Saudi Arabia. This qualified engineer found herself in a country with strict social customs, where women and men are not allowed to mix in the workplace. ‘The engineering field in Saudi is 100% male! So I could either sit at home or change my career.’ She tried teaching, but it was not her domain. ‘I’m hard-wired to be an engineer,’ she says, ‘it’s what I trained for!’
HANDASIYET.NET THE PLATFORM
Virtual office, real skills
Saudi Arabia has a booming market for qualified engineers; construction projects totalling close to half a trillion US dollars are currently underway in the kingdom, Nermin estimates. Her husband – also an engineer – was soon overloaded with work and bringing it home every night. ‘To alleviate his stress, I started helping out on non-core tasks, such as AutoCAD drawings, calculations, technical translations, or bills of quantities: tasks required on each project but which can all be done at a distance. The system ran perfectly for 10 years! You have fewer expenses at home: no transport costs or office outlay, it’s extremely cost-efficient for high returns.’
UFFP President and editor tells you her story.
Interview with UFFP :
Why Handasiyet.net?
We wanted to approach the market of employment when it comes to women engineers differently.In a way, propose to lower the cost of employment in the Gulf region, because it suffers of a huge lack of local engineers. Handasiyet in another hand may also help in solving the crisis in some areas such as Lybia, Syria. Our platform can help indeed in such complex areas, mostly when it is instable.
So virtual workers can solve problems in Arabic conflict areas? Yes they may try at least to do so.
Based in Saudi Arabia, but your resources comes from Jordan ? yes my native land is full of engineers, each year we produce more then 7000 engineers. 25 % from the 80 % are female. 13000 engineers are not working in Jordan. In Saudi Arabia, there is a huge lack of them, so we provide job opportunities. It is a kind of compromise between both countries.
Handasiyet is more then a year old? Yes it is fairly recent, but because I Have a very good background, I lived in Saudi Arabia for twelve years, and we have a very good groundbase of clients. This gives us good points to start from.
Women empowerment and gender equality a struggle for women engineers in the region? I consider myself to be very successful and lucky, because I have the chance to have a husband that is also a mechanical engineer. So since he is in my field, he helps me a lot. All the customers and clients are through his relations. I know that the other side doES exist but was fortunate enough not to experience it.
So gender equality at work is a struggle ? yes I know some of my friends who refuse to marry because they fear to loose their job !
Being a mum and working, hard to challenge? In the Arabic areas, we don’t often acess to babysitting facilities, we must stay home to take care of the family. The market of employment is loosing very high female profiles.
The compromise is possible? Working from home is a good alternative and Handasiyet provides that. This applies to mums with young children. Homebased business are cost effective because you don’t have those cost associated like clothing care, transport, food etc
Working and keeping the tradition is possible? Women empowerment yes and taking into consideration cultural identity also. This is the strength of my business that allows women to work virtually. The most critical point in the muslim world when it comes to women working, is the physical contact.
Virtual work eliminates any form of potential burden or male harassment ? indeed, it protects you from that. I do my work, you pay me and that’s it.
No tabous means same chances for a woman ? yes it is the strong point of my project. We judge you by your qualifications and that’s it.
Women sacrificing to their family is a choice rather then an obligation ? yes for me I would do anything to keep my family well protected. It is my free will it is not imposed on me to do so. It’s not cultural, it is a part of us as females, we don’t want to stay far from our family. It definitely has nothing to do with religion or culture or society. It is just as I feel it should be.
We want to be close to our children, spend each moment of life with them. Yet I also want to work and I can do both !
Women are multitasks ? yes I’m a sample but I also consider that many female in the region could do the same as me. The situation in the Arabic world is changing, of course not as rapid as we would wish it to be, but it is entering an era of great change for Arabic women.
Saudi Arabia is changing ? yes we can see women studying engineering,women becoming famous like Zaha Hadid for example; she is one of the biggest engineers of the world. The Arabic awakening created an alert, some kind of new consciousness regarding women. The digital world helped a lot connecting with the rest of the world. Females have great potential!
We must focus on potential rather then social generalities? Exactly, we focus on the fact that Saudi women don’t drive, but people forget that 45% of Saudi wealth is in the hands of females !
Everything is bubbling and emerging so we should stay hopeful ? yes it is important to focus on the positive, to invest in our assets, our qualifications, find new fruitfull ways to work without endangering our position in society. We have also to be realistic of course!