Women in action

In a small, tucked-away village in Kerala stands a 475-square feet house which is known across the region not because of who owns it, but because of those who built it. And it's not a building constructed by some famous architect but by a group of 20 daily-wage workers -- all of them women.

This 20-member all-women group, Nirmanashree Constructions, is challenging building-industry stereotypes and has broken the glass ceiling in a male-dominated sector by completing their first building at Elamdesham village here in Kerala's Idukki district.
In a matter of less than two months, these women, most of whom belong to the nearby Velliyamattom village, got trained to become qualified masons, good enough to take on their male counterparts. Not only did they complete the building as part of their training, they are already in final stages of talks for their next project.

Although women constitute half of the construction labour force in the country, they are relegated to menial work with skills like masonry, carpentry and others considered to be men's domain.

Till as late as August this year, most of these 20 women were engaged either in household chores or worked as daily-wage labourers under the "right to work" programme of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

"But thanks to our Velliyamattom village council president Sheeba Rajasekheran, we have turned professional," Suja, 43, who left college to get married after failing her B.Com examinations, said proudly. Rajasekheran, who also looks after the Kerala government's women's empowerment programme "Kudumbashree", first called a meeting and mooted the idea of training interested women to become masons.

She also got in touch with the Kottayam-headquartered Archana Women's Centre (AWC), which specialises in running training programmes for empowering women through imparting of new skills. "There was a lot of interest shown by the ladies and 30 of them registered, which included 10 tribal ladies, as two wards in my village council are tribal villages," said Rajasekheran.

The AWC brought with them a qualified civil engineer, Priyanka, and an experienced male mason, who provided guidance. While the experiment started with 30 women, 10 of them found the work too tough to carry on. Bindu, 40, said that there were a lot of doubts regarding whether an all-women group would be able to do a good job of constructing a house, usually considered a job for men.

"There were a few days of classroom teaching, where we were taught everything about the construction process and skills. Then we were straight away taken to the site, where we were told that we have to build the house. It was not an easy task, but we were determined and soon it became a pleasure to see the work progress," said Bindu.

The women first designed the layout of the house on paper and then, under the guidance of newly-graduated civil engineer Priyanka, they started the construction process wearing shirts over their salwar kameezes and towels wrapped around their heads. "It was a great experience thereafter for them as well as for me," Priyanka said, adding that while they were guided by an experienced male mason, women executed all the work -- right from laying the foundation to building walls, setting the roof, and plaster and painting work.

- Sanu George