In line with its community social investment programme, The Zimbabwe Professional Development Fund (ZPDF), established in 2006, awarded Juliet Mutero a two-year scholarship to receive tertiary training in Metal Work from 2011.
She graduated with a diploma from Magamba Training Centre in 2012. The ZPDF provides scholarships to academically gifted pupils to pursue their studies at local secondary schools, technical and teachers’ colleges and universities.
The fund manager, Stanley Shumba, said deserving and underprivileged students from various provinces receive the scholarships annually. Half are reserved for women.
Now making strides in a male-dominated field, Mutero has established her engineering business at Matondo Business Centre in Mutare South and is supplying the surrounding communities with metal gates, wheel barrows, door and window frames, hoes and grinding mill parts as well as other products.
She employs three men and one women at her Eastern Agricultural Engineering Enterprise and is thinking of expanding he business. Her small-scale engineering shop specialises in metal equipment used by small-scale farmers and schools in the surrounding areas.
Livelihood
“I always wanted to be a nurse, but failing to find employment after completing my O levels forced me to do technical work in order to achieve,” she said.
“I took advantage of knowledge gained at school. When I did metal work, it was one of my favourite subjects and I competed well with the male students. Now I am happy it turned out to be the source of my livelihood,” said Mutero.
“Through receiving the bursary and linking me with a vocational training programme, the opportunities came flooding in,” she said. “At my graduation I was named the third best out of 43 graduating students. Only three females graduated in Metal Work. We were presented with start-up equipment prizes by the Norwegian Embassy and this equipment helped me to make my first profit,” Mutero recalled.
No guarantee
If it had not been for the scholarship, she could have been among the thousands of young people migrating to neighbouring South Africa where, in the absence of qualifications and skills, there is no guarantee of a job.
Besides her four permanent employees, Mutero employs local students as apprentices.
“Our work is appreciated by the communities and surrounding schools as shown by the many repeat orders we receive,” she said. “Our wish is to expand so that the company becomes a one stop-shop that offers a range of products, but the biggest challenge is a lack of heavy duty machinery,” she said.
One of the apprentices, Silvia Bangwayo aged 20, said she was looking forward to going to college and qualifying as an artisan.
“Madam (Mutero) inspires me to believe in myself and I want to go far. She is also an inspiration to other girls to venture into professions that were previously deemed for men only. My ambition is to be a qualified artisan,” said Bangwayo.
Hard worker
Local councillor, Thomas Dirwai said; “A success story like hers gives hope to young girls in the community. Mutero is a hard worker and a role model to many young people in this community."
“As community and village leaders we are happy that she is also giving back to the community by inspiring other youths to value education” added Dirwai.
Mutero says many women are deterred from participating in male-dominated industries because of the lack of male family role models, stereotypes, discouraging workplace culture and structural problems within organisations.
She says that it is high time the leaders of male-dominated industries recognised the potential of the under-utilised pool of talent that women represent.
Post published in: Gender Equality