Building a better life | How construction empowers women in poor communities

Tatu Gatere: ‘When I ask the women on our programme why they have enrolled, without exception they tell me: “I want my children to have a better life than me.” Which is precisely why I founded BuildHer.’

‘I want future generations to face fewer problems than the women who participate in the programme. These women live in the slums of Nairobi and have had little or no formal education. Many of them have been married off as teenagers because their families are so poor that it makes sense for them to get their daughters out of the house at as young an age as possible. That means fewer mouths to feed. The girls view marriage as a way out of their family misery. But then they get pregnant and discover that life repeats itself. Their husbands beat them, just like their parents did before. There is not enough food, hygiene is poor, diseases are rampant and they have no access to medical care. They see no way out of poverty, because as uneducated women they are condemned to work the absolute lowest paying jobs.’

‘When I set up BuildHer in 2018, I assumed women from the slums would be eager to enrol in a course that would offer them the opportunity of properly paid work. But when I began recruiting, I hit a wall of mistrust. Many of these women are so severely traumatised and suspicious, that they will not easily trust strangers. It was only when I approached them through their local acquintances, that they dared to register. That is no longer necessary today, because the women who have completed the programme are our best ambassadors. They work paid jobs through our partners in the construction industry, which is booming due to the country’s population growth. In addition, I have designed a line of furniture, which former students manufacture.’

‘I am from the Kenyan middle class myself, but my parents also couldn’t afford to send me to university. I really wanted to study architecture. That’s why I left for the US, where I was able to pay for my own studies by working my way through college. After I graduated, I worked as an architect in Seattle, but ultimately, I wanted to return to Africa. Via South Africa, I ended up at a major architectural agency in Nairobi, where I designed ultra-modern buildings for the happy few. But I felt I was betraying myself; I wasn’t making the world a better place.’

‘One day, I attended a UN conference about improving public spaces in the slums around Nairobi. It blew my mind, it was a revelation for me. I became so inspired that I quit my job at the commercial architectural agency. Driven by a desire to reduce the inequality between rich and poor in the construction industry, I began working on a design project in a settlement in a slum.’

‘There I observed that women are extremely modest and reticent, partly because they never have an opportunity to use their potential. I wanted to empower them because I saw that these women also had incredible strength, the willpower to improve their own fate and their children’s fate too.’

‘Education became the starting point from which I set up BuildHer. Partly thanks to the support I received from the Sint Antonius Stichting, I was able to expand the programme. The women receive training in technical skills, but also in life skills. It really moves me when participants tell me that the programme has given them self-confidence and enabled them to be more assertive at home too. They stand up for themselves, they’re no longer dependent on their husbands and they decide independently to send their children to school. That is a huge success.’