Dear MEL Topic Readers,
The women at the centre of Somalia's construction boom
Located on the Horn of Africa, Somalia is the easternmost country in
Africa, facing the Gulf of Aden to the north and the Indian Ocean to the east. Former
Italian and British territories united and formed the independent Somali Republic
in 1960. However, the nation had been
under domestic conflicts and also suffered a US-backed Ethiopian invasion until
2012, when the Federal Government of Somalia was established. Somalia, with a
population of around 18 million, is among the least developed countries in the
world, with a large portion of the population living by subsistence farming. In
the meantime, in Mogadishu, the capital city, the post-conflict reconstruction has
led to a construction and housing boom, and thousands of new buildings have
been constructed since 2020. Unfortunately, since this construction boom occurred
before building regulations were put into force, there are mounting concerns
about the safety of the buildings. Also, the city’s infrastructure, including water
and sewage systems, has not caught up with the booming construction. In
addition, there is a severe shortage of workforce, particularly construction
engineers. Surprisingly for an Islamic society, two young female engineers are
now overseeing construction work in a traditionally male-dominated workplace,
putting hard hats on their hijabs. Rapid urban development in a least developed
country gave young Muslim women the chance to work in a male-dominated
construction workplace.
Read the article and learn what is happening in the capital city of
Somalia.
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