Black Immigrant Daily News
A Barbadian female electrical technician is advocating for the school curriculum to be modified to encourage more young women to study trade-related subjects.
I think we need to widen that aspect in terms of exposing our females to that side because not everyone can do corporate or is interested.
Speaking during a panel discussion hosted by the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA), titled “Pink Wings: A Conversation With Women Of Aviation”, Odelia Regis-Sobers expressed she wanted to see more females involved in technical and vocational subjects in schools.
“In school, we [girls] had more corporate line subjects and not trades. The guys were more into the trade side of the studies than the girls. I think we need to widen that aspect in terms of exposing our females to that side because not everyone can do corporate or is interested.
“You may like building things with your hands and drawing and that kind of stuff. So I think that they need to widen that scope in terms of having the females into that and not just push them into a direction that you have to have this kind of corporate, white-collar job as a female,” Regis-Sobers advocated.
She explained that her uncles who had vocational jobs introduced her to the sector. She learnt joinery at a young age and then transitioned to electrical.
“Coming up I had a lot of uncles and seeing them working doing mechanics and other trade work, that spiked my interest. As I got older I did joinery but God didn’t have it. . . . That was just the path that I needed to take to be here right now. And then, I had a friend that was doing electrical and one day I just decided I would go there and help him and from there I just snapped and was like this is what I need to be doing.”
For Regis-Sobers, it was breath of fresh air to have a female head the Electrical Department at the airport. This also encouraged her to join the team.
“I started my journey through different areas of electrical and this is where it landed me. When I heard that a female was the head of engineering it pushed me to try to join the electrical team here at GAIA Inc because as a female you don’t see much females in my industry as a head, we see mostly men so that gave me the enthusiasm and the push that I really needed to strive for excellency and to rise higher as a female being in a male dominated world.”
“My boss is who encouraged me to actually come further than I expected that I would come,” she added.
NewsAmericasNow.com
