Carisa Lee

Just over a week ago, the world recog­nised women dur­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day. This year’s theme was Gen­der Equal­i­ty To­day for a Sus­tain­able To­mor­row with the hash­tag #Break­the­Bias, some­thing women in­struc­tors and stu­dents at the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­ter (NESC) do on a dai­ly ba­sis.

The women in the field of Drilling Rig Op­er­a­tions and Elec­tri­cal and In­stru­men­ta­tion at the in­sti­tu­tion say they are of­ten un­der­es­ti­mat­ed and their tal­ents are over­looked.

“You have to spend more time prov­ing that you are wor­thy to be in the same room or or­gan­i­sa­tion as the men would be,” NESC In­struc­tor Aneila Ma­habir said.

Ma­habir, who has been an in­struc­tor for the last eight years, said on many oc­ca­sions her work was sec­ond-guessed, in­stead of com­mend­ed.

“I have been con­sis­tent­ly thrown in the deep,” she added.

The lec­tur­er said when she sees women en­rol at the cen­tre she feels ho­n­oured, es­pe­cial­ly since it breaks the bias that on­ly men be­long in that line of work.

“I was set­ting up the class, a class with on­ly men, of course, and I left the class­room and came back and they said they thought I was the sec­re­tary set­ting up for the lec­tur­er to come in,” she re­called.

NESC instructor Aneila Mahabir speaks to the students.

NEIL ROMAIN-GML CAMERAMAN

Ma­habir said women add a lot to the work­force and she is hop­ing that lo­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions put in­to ac­tion their di­ver­si­ty com­mit­ments and women get their due re­spect.

When for­mer stu­dent Stef­fi Hanu­man en­rolled in 2014, she was on­ly one of four women in the class of 100 stu­dents.

But she tri­umphed in the male-dom­i­nat­ed class and went on to be one of the first and on­ly roustabouts (a labour­er on an oil rig) in this coun­try. She re­called that the men thought she could not do the job be­cause of her gen­der and size.

“I had to prove my­self that I was wor­thy. To the males, like I was oc­cu­py­ing one of their col­leagues’ po­si­tions, I had to prove them wrong,” she ex­plained.

Hanu­man is now an in­struc­tor at NESC. She said she feels a sense of ac­com­plish­ment be­ing back there and see­ing more women en­rolling to be­come elec­tri­cians, welders and even rig op­er­a­tors.

“Don’t let the norms of to­day’s so­ci­ety de­ter you from do­ing your best and giv­ing your all,” she added.

This ad­vice Priya Jaimun­gal, 19, has ab­sorbed. The Drilling Rig Op­er­a­tions stu­dent said she al­ways dreamt of work­ing off­shore and break­ing the bias - that’s why she joined NESC.

NESC students and instructors on Rig at NESC 3

NEIL ROMAIN

“I def­i­nite­ly feel proud to be a fe­male…my class is full of males, so to be a fe­male there makes me feel em­pow­ered like I can make a dif­fer­ence,” she said.

It’s the same for elec­tri­cal stu­dent Nao­mi Bap­tiste, who said no mat­ter her gen­der or sta­tis­tics in her field of in­ter­est, she is pre­pared to suc­ceed.

“I write down my goals and go over in my head what I want to achieve,” she said.

The stu­dents said see­ing their in­struc­tors break the bias dai­ly, mo­ti­vates them to ex­cel in their fields and con­tin­ue to cre­ate change.

“Don’t feel dom­i­nat­ed by men, usu­al­ly women can do what a man can do once you put your mind to it,” Jaimun­gal con­clud­ed.

NESC students and instructors on Rig at NESC

NEIL ROMAIN