Peace Winds’ Supervisor Engineer is Fighting Gender Barriers in Duhok, Iraq
Meet Mrs. Sipal Khalid Abdi. She is a civil engineer who works with Peace Winds as a supervisor engineer. As one of few women in her field, Sipal has faced many challenges in her career path. However, Sipal has been working to break down these barriers and has built a successful career as an engineer.
Sipal graduated from the University of Duhok’s College of Engineering in 2002. This was a new challenge for Sipal as not many females enroll in engineering school, due in large part to the Kurdish culture which is not familiar with women doing the difficult tasks that come with the job such as working directly in the field and supervising the construction of roads and buildings. However, her own determination to succeed as well as the support of her father motivated her to work hard, and after graduation, she earned a position with a private contracting company. She was later appointed as an official employee in the Directorate of General Municipalities in Duhok where she supervised construction projects and roads, but the job came with other challenges, as well. At first, the administration was not confident with a female in the engineering department, citing concerns that such work would be difficult for a woman who has never faced a stressful work environment, as well as that staff were not used to having a female in a supervisory role.
Sipal set out to change those ideas and to prove that women are no less capable of fieldwork than men. She was always working to improve her skills and her self-confidence by telling herself that she would accept and overcome every challenge she faced, and through her hard work and determination, she managed to gain the trust of the management at the General Municipalities. Sipal was promoted to projects manager of the scope of the governorate (Duhok), and a short while later, she was promoted again to municipality manager of Bagira, one of Duhok governorate’s sub-districts. Community members were again skeptical of a female managing their municipality, but this didn’t stop Sipal.
Of course, success for Sipal meant double the effort, not only in her professional life, but in her personal life as well. Following the marriage to her husband and the birth of her child, Sipal fell under great pressure to find a work-life balance between managing projects in the office and nurturing her growing daughter in school and in life. Fortunately, Sipal’s husband encouraged her ambitions, and along with her own dedication, she was able to succeed professionally and in supporting her family.
After gaining field experience as an engineer, Sipal decided to change the course of her career away from governmental work and toward humanitarian work that would allow her to learn about new countries and cultures. She managed a livelihood project for internally displaced peoples (IDPs) and their host community, and while the work was new to Sipal and differed from her background in engineering, she succeeded in helping the project’s beneficiaries through a training program that provided them work experience in different fields, thus increasing their income and ability to support their families.
Finally, in November 2020, Sipal landed at her current position with Peace Winds. The nature of her work now is unique compared to her previous experience. Sipal works in the construction field and deals only with Syrian refugees, who fled their homes due to war in the region. Sipal must be mindful of the refugees’ psychological, social, and financial conditions and communicate to them that Peace Winds is there to help them overcome a difficult stage of their lives. The project Sipal works on involves upgrading refugees’ tents to semi-permanent structures with proper latrines, showers, plumbing, electricity, and protection from the elements.
To effectively do her job, Sipal says that she sometimes has to assume the role of a refugee and put herself in their shoes. This has given her new challenges as a mother and as an engineer, as she provides assistance to many suffering women and children. She hopes to improve their living conditions enough to bring back their smiles and has no plans to quit her role as a source of support and confidence to anyone who seeks her expertise.
In episode 12 of #FacesfromtheField, Peace Winds’ video series featuring staff interviews, we spoke to Sipal about her experience working with refugees in Duhok. Click below to watch.