Gender revolution in construction

At Greenspan Estate in Eastlands, Nairobi, there are many women workers as men working on the construction site and they are proving they are equal to the task

By Home&Away Correspondent

When Beatrice Mbatha wakes up every morning to go to work from her Kayole house to the Greenspan Housing Project, many of her neighbours assume she either cooks lunch or serves uji for the ‘men at work’, as is common in other places.

However, Mbatha has joined more than 300 other women to take over the construction work at the massive Sh5 billion housing project. She is specialised in steel works and is now among those working on the roof of the shopping mall at Greenspan Estate.

Quietly fixing the bolts hundreds of feet above the ground, Mbatha is now part of a unique experiment that is likely to cause a gender revolution in the multi-billion housing and road construction industry in the country.

Several feet below Mbatha, Grace Ayiemba and Rachel Moraa are working on the concrete mixer. Supervising several other women, Ayiemba and Moraa co-ordinate the mixing of the cement, sand and ballast, known in the construction parlance as ‘Koroga’. It is a skill that took seven months to learn before they were allowed to oversee the process. They make sure other women transport the mixture to other sections of the construction site.

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Maria Maingi is confident with her painting

"We initially started off with few women, but over the past year, the performance of women has simply shocked us," he says. "As a result, we have gradually taken in more women and have not regretted it."

Wafula says that there are several areas in the construction process that women have clear edge over men.

"Areas such as of the laying tiles, painting as it requires patience and attention to detail... you simply cannot compare... Women are miles ahead of men," he says.

Wafula adds that women are better at taking instructions and argue less, thus saving so much time and emotional energy that usually drain workers at construction sites.

Beauty and quality

According to Wafula, all the major construction departments at the site have at least 30 per cent women, with others having more women than men.

According to the construction policy, sections that do not have women are supposed to incorporate female apprentices and ensure they are competent to do the same work as the men.

"For instance, the painting section started off with just two women last year, but after the training programme, more than half the painters are women," he says. "We want to target other sections like the plumbing and electrical works that still have fewer women."

Maingi and a colleague mix the paints.

Shirish Shah, the Managing Director of Greenspan Investment Limited, says his dream of giving women equal opportunity in life has been fulfilled by the project.

"Ever since my days at the London School of Economics, I have always worked hard to ensure that women are not discriminated against in accessing economic opportunities," he says.

Shah says the quality of the finished units has totally wiped away stereotypes developed against women, especially in the male dominated industries.

"Society has over the years developed systematic ceilings in order to deny women economic opportunities," Shah says.

He wonders why in many Kenyan societies, women are the ones who build houses, fetch the water several kilometres away, and milk the cows, yet when it comes to real opportunities like the multi-billion road projects, they are sidelined.

Equal access

"What we have done here is to prove that the time of holding seminars about gender equality is up. It is time to give our women equal access to opportunities," Shah says adding that a good portion of the Sh5 billion project shall be directly channelled to women through salaries and wages.

"If all the housing and road construction projects can come here to see, and adopt our system of empowering women, I am sure the country shall be a better place in live in, since empowered women are less likely to suffer from violence and abuse," he says.