And after years that this woman has spent learning to drive large vehicles, like buses, trucks, etc., she is now playing the same role.
Teaching bus and truck driving
Rym drives his school bus almost daily to the training area to begin giving driving lessons for this type of tank truck. accept that they receive an education in this field from a woman.
Reem Awni, a bus driving instructor in Tunisia, says she has loved a challenge since she was young, and that despite the amount of prejudice, she was able to achieve a high level of professionalism, a profession considered for men for decades. .
Reem adds, in an interview with the program “From There”, broadcast on “Sky News Arabia”: “I am the first Tunisian woman to teach bus driving directly to the trade, and I am a person who likes challenges . started this work years ago, and since I was young, I thought to break into this field, and I work in a difficult field.
And she explains: “No one believed in my abilities, and everyone I’ve spoken to about my project since before I even started wondering: Where will you go? And that’s the question that brought me to what I am, thank God, and now my job is a bus driving instructor, and it’s a very difficult job, and with determination, I have reached my son.” reputation now.”
Teacher Reem believes she has challenged society’s patriarchal view of her job and has even made a big name for herself in the field of teaching bus and truck driving .
Despite the openness of Tunisian society and the awareness of the important place of women within the work and production systems in Tunisia, the presence of a woman in the field of teaching bus driving initially arouses hesitation in each learner. Reem won this challenge.
Reem Awni explains to ‘Sky News Arabia’: “This job is difficult and has never been easy. And my relationships are actually all with men, although they don’t accept the way women drive everyday. normal car on the road, let alone me, as a woman, teaching them to drive trucks.
And she adds: “All of this has not been easy at all. I made a lot of sacrifices to get to this level, and my name is known in this field. Thank God, and it’s a challenge between me and me, and between me. and people who didn’t trust me and even tried to disrupt my dreams, but thank God I didn’t lose faith in myself.
Reem has her trainees who choose her based on many criteria, perhaps the most important of which is her reputation and what those who trained her say she is after completing the leadership training period.
A qualified driver says: “It’s true that driving instruction in general is for men, but there are plenty of women who have proven themselves worthy of learning to drive.
And the trainee adds to Sky News Arabia: “Reem, I heard her before her, and she is a woman who loves her job and is very serious, and that’s why I chose her to teach me to drive the bus, and also my wife, who then learns to drive an ordinary passenger car.”
The law for the education of cars and all types of trucks and buses in Tunisia stipulates equality between candidates to learn and teach the driving of all means of transport, which has opened up many opportunities for women to enter the field of teaching the driving of heavy machinery of means of transport and other fields. .
Reem isn’t the only one who defied her circumstances, surroundings, and prejudices about her dreams and profession until she found success in her field. Rather, there are other models of professions that have always been considered by men since the dawn of history, but today’s women have proven themselves capable of mastering these professions… and even to excel at it.
soldering iron
In the center of the city of Karmbalia, east of the capital, Tunis, this young girl lives. Ghada leaves her parents’ house every day early in the morning to go to the blacksmith shop where she works.
Dressed in her trade as a welder of iron and other metallic materials, she joins her father’s workshop and begins to work.
Touching, cutting and soldering iron seems to be a male act par excellence. Indeed, blacksmiths in many of our societies – without generalizing – have certain deeply masculine features, with large bodies and prominent arms due to the frequent carrying of iron. .
But this look changes radically as soon as you enter the workshop and see this young girl with feminine features working many types of metals, especially iron.
Ghada Al-Thawadi, owner of Rushd Welding Iron, says: “I started blacksmithing when I was seventeen. I was young, and when I came back from school, I went through my father here in his workshop. This profession is a man, and it made me think of another job, but I loved this profession since I was young.
Ghada Al-Thawadi adds to ‘Sky News Arabia’: “I grew up after that and started working and helping him in that job, and sometimes he would invite me to help him, and I Then I decided to study blacksmithing, which is a dream I realized, and today I really feel capable of working, and even imposing myself even on my male colleagues.
Ghada received her father’s attention and encouragement to practice this profession, despite her reluctance at first.
The encouragement of her father, who spent decades in the trade, opened the door for Ghada to prove that she is capable of blacksmithing and even mastering it.
Fathi Al-Duraidi, Ghada’s father, says: “I have been doing this job for forty years, which is the forge, and I have this daughter of mine who has taken up the torch. In fact, it is difficult work and not easy.” work alone.”
Reem and Ghada, in their professions, are just examples of many Tunisian women who have entered professional fields long considered masculine, such as taxi driving, construction, carpentry and others.
Despite the relative availability of the cultural and legal climate that gives women the opportunity to exercise these professions, the ceiling of Tunisian women’s ambition is still high in the need to provide the necessary encouragement from the Tunisian state. .. the country whose founders say after independence that the secret of its success and prosperity lies mainly in its women.
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