My name is Juliet Mupete I’m aged 44. I was born in Mutare in a family of 8, five girls and three boys. I did my primary education in Mutare and my family later moved to Harare where I completed my secondary schooling.
I started working at Southerton service station as a fuel attended in 1998. I later quit because I didn’t feel the job was good for me. After that I stayed at home up until 2002, with family members pressurising me to apply to be a police officer or a soldier. I have always been a hard worker so everyone believed I should be in that kind of field as they believed I would excel. My rural background had taught me to be hardworking and having lived with my grandfather who believed that a woman could do anything, I was up for any challenge thrust my way. I grew up fixing scotch carts in the rural area because my grandfather believed a woman should know how to fix anything and everything.
In a way my grandfather molded me for the profession I would take up later in my life.
My brother was a Vehicle Body Builder but he was not trade tested and he used to work at Deven Engineering. He unfortunately passed away when I was in form two. My Uncle who also worked at Deven Engineering encouraged me to consider applying for apprenticeship so I could take up Vehicle Body Building. This idea appealed to me as I felt it was something I could do and enjoy so I applied and got accepted for apprenticeship training. I was the only female in the group and I ended up being the only person who had applied to do Vehicle Body Building in April 2003. When I applied at the Ministry of Manpower Development I was told I was the only woman in Zimbabwe to register for this course.
It wasn’t easy being the only female working at an Engineering firm, I faced a lot of challenges and had to break through stereotypes. No one believed I could successfully do Vehicle Body Building because I was a woman and they took every opportunity to tell me this. All their talk which was meant to discourage me only motivated me to do better. I had to work twice as hard as the men just to prove myself. It was a challenge at first, during the initial days they would devise ways so that I didn’t get access to machinery in the workshop just to make my job impossible. As a Vehicle Body Builder your job is to assemble not to weld. But I was interested in welding so I took that up as well but I was not particularly good at it. The men would laugh at my efforts but I kept trying until I was just as good as they were. Sometimes their taunting got to me but I never let them see my weakness. I didn’t want them to think I was weak or inferior. I continued to work twice as hard, I would volunteer to do overtime even during holidays just to prove that I was no different from the men. I would sometimes get home at 2 am and by 5am I would be on my way back because by then we were using the train to get to work.
I learnt how to build minibuses, buses and trailers, I started by learning how to build busses then trailers. In the trailer section it was just me and another guy and we would meet our weekly targets. People would comment and say it appeared as though only men were working in that section. They could not believe a woman was working alongside a man and delivering.
When I was trade tested I was asked to do a van body, I was given an assistant who was a man. I put up the pillars of the van body and the following day I found that he had dismantled all the pillars. He told me that what I had built was not good enough. I was angry and told him that his job was to assist me and do as I directed as I was the one being tested. I rebuilt it as I wanted it to be like and I passed my trade test.
As an apprentice you are allocated the College to go to, you do not choose, I was allocated to Harare Poly Technical College. When I went there the Principal fumed saying he would not allow just one candidate for Vehicle Body Building to study there. He said it would impact negatively on the college if I failed because it would reflect a 100 percent failure rate. I told him I was not going to any other college and he had to find me lecturers. In the end he had no choice but to let me study there. When I finished my studies, finding a job was another hurdle. I was constantly told that I would reduce production as everyone in the workshop would be interested in talking to me and not doing their work. I later got a lectureship position at Kwekwe Polytech in 2010. I have since upgraded my education and I am awaiting my results as I recently sat for exams to attain my Masters in Manufacturing Engineering and Operation Management.
To work in a field dominated by men is very difficult. You have to gear up, you have to know your passion. I know that as a woman you will be stigmatised and discriminated but you just have to be brave and show up. Research, be knowledgeable and innovative in you field. When I was doing my National Diploma I made a manually operated chicken feed machine. When I made it everyone liked it and it was exhibited at Agricultural shows and won awards.
A few years later I made a small grain thresher which uses an electric motor. Women can use this to thresh their grains and it takes less time and they do not have to work as hard as when they have to thresh manually.
Never feel discouraged, you can do anything that a man can do as long as you put your mind to it. My desire is to have a school for people with a passion for sheet metal work. This school would cater for people who have a passion and are innovative even if they do not have 5 ordinary level subjects.