ELA FAZ: Women in Civil Construction, opportunities and challenges.

I'm Lívia Viana, I'm 43, an administrator, civil engineer, and businesswoman for 11 years in the construction industry through the precast industry Predmix. The purpose that made me open the startupEla fazem 2020 was to enable and insert women in the labor market of civil construction. This desire emerged after hearing the needs of women who were in situations of social vulnerability and needed an opportunity to transform their lives.

So I tried to dig deeper into the subject, to find the women who were in the market and understand what they needed to get into the construction industry. I also heard from people what they expected from women who were plumbers, bricklayers, painters, and electricians to hire them for their companies or homes.

The first data gathered was that the role of women in the labor market was growing, but there was still a lot to be conquered. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), Brazil could expand its economy by up to R$ 382 billion over eight years, this would depend on increasing by 1/4 the insertion of women in the labor market by 2025.

Another survey released by the Public Ministry of Labor in March 2019 found that Maranhão led the ranking of women rescued in slave labor situations. According to the president of the Human Rights Commission of the OAB, Rafael Silva, men are victims mainly in rural areas and women in the urban region. (Source: http://abet-trabalho.org.br/ma-e- o-estado-com-mais-mulheres-em-situacao-de-trabalho-analogo-ao-escravo/).

Based on the data pointed out so far I could see that the challenges that the Northeast and other regions of the country had (and have) with the insertion of women in the job market, whether in the CLT condition or as service providers, are not only about gender preferences, but about a whole culture of harassment and violence that unfortunately is rooted and normalized in the world of work.

In the absence of more comprehensive and firm public policies, the organized civil society and the private initiative need to get more and more involved in these discussions and give concrete alternatives so that there is a balance and a fairer and more equal scenario.

In Maranhão, the percentage distribution of female workers in the formal market according to the large areas of activity, of the women occupied in formal jobs, in 2018, 2.81% are in industry, 0.82% are in civil construction, 16.95% are in commerce, 78.88% are in services, 0.54% are in farming.(Source: http://relatoriosdinamicos.com.br/mulheres/)

Furthermore, it is shown that the construction sector is one of the sectors with the lowest rate of women participating in this vast production chain.

It was at this moment that I asked myself!

Would offering training courses be enough for women in the construction industry? Would this be one of the solutions to help reduce gender inequality in Brazilian society?

It was then that I set out to help train women, to expand and promote their insertion in the job market. And beyond that, it is essential that we develop a communication strategy to raise the awareness of businessmen and employees that will lead to a cultural transformation in these organizations and in society itself.

I believe that gender equity in the market of the productive chain, imminently composed of men, as for the market of autonomous services, can directly contribute to entrepreneurship and the regularization of professional activities of women via cooperatives or collectives, in addition to strengthening networks between the students and the project's partner institutions and communities, and generating income and wealth for the region.

Here are some of the social impacts of the Ela Faz project

- Empowerment of women's labor to provide services;

- Mapping of job openings and opportunities for outplacement of participants;

- Wealth generation and stimulus to entrepreneurship with the opportunity to form cooperatives;

- Professionalization and regularization of the hiring of women's labor;

- Valuing local and female labor and generating benefits for society.

It is no news that the civil construction sector is one of the sectors with the lowest rate of women participating in this vast production chain. That is why we launched a training opportunity for women in four areas of civil construction. With one day of promotion through our social networks, we had several interested parties, preferably for the activities of building electrician and painter.

However, the hardest part was yet to come: the permanence of these women in the job market. Little by little we realized that the organizational culture needed to be prepared to receive these women, and this was something we did not find.

As soon as we took on the challenge of entering the construction sites with the professionals, we realized that they needed a welcome. They were very insecure, needed to validate every action, and brought within themselves traumas and limitations of behavioral impositions from childhood that deprived them of their freedom to be whatever they wanted.

We trained 200 women and managed to insert 60% of them in the labor market, because we joined the psychosocial support so that they could exercise their full potential, putting into practice their freedom, creativity, and performance with safety in their activities. We also try to make the business owners aware that a women's bathroom on site, a dialogue that stimulates diverse opinions, a policy of development and equitable career compensation, and valuing parity, make the organization happy, productive, and profitable.

That is why today we are also proposing a consulting work that would propose actions for a cultural transformation in the organizations, aiming to turn that space into a more inclusive and diverse environment that welcomes and supports women.

We know that we still have a lot to do and that we must strengthen ourselves in the purpose of being agents of transformation through a change in social culture, training, and making connections to form a network that can help us achieve the goal of this Project. This is how we will continue as long as God wants.