Hi everyone. My name is Alisha Raghoonanan.
I am a project engineer/project manager for EGP South Africa,
and I've been selected to participate in the “Back to school” program
to raise awareness at high school level with STEM careers,
because that is when girls would be making career choices
and moving into university level.
My high school is Lenasia Secondary
and it is in a little Indian district in Johannesburg South.
And what we found is that our communities are very orthodox,
parents are usually very strict and stern on girls
and they view engineering still as a very male dominated field.
So I find that having selected these four girls
and started the mentorship program with them,
we've gotten to a point now where there's almost a sense of inspiration
and companionship that's there because we've come from the same background,
so we can relate to each other.
When you think of an engineer, you think of… you've got a very, you know,
set kind of specification in your mind of what this person looks like,
how they conduct themselves.
And that's no longer the accurate definition.
When I first got to the school
and I started having this conversation with (with) them,
I could almost see like the lights go off in their brain,
or their eyes widen, and they were like:
“Oh, my goodness, this person is an engineer!”
that grew up the same way they did
and experienced all the same challenges that they've experienced.
I'm proud to be a female engineer in South Africa.
I would really, really like
to have other young ladies join me in the renewable space.
We can really make such a huge difference in the country
and maybe even globally.
We still have a lot of work to do.
And the most important thing, in my opinion,
is for us to shift our mindsets.
We have to treat everybody the same and measure them
based on their performance and what they can do and their intelligence.