Tema, April, GNA – Ms. Phillipa Joy Essien, Learning and Development Officer at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has urged the media to provide women operating in technical fields the platform to share their exploits.
Ms Essien who stated this at the eleventh monthly stakeholder engagement seminar organized by the Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office which is a platform rolled out for state and non-state actors to address national issues said there was the need for women in technical positions to mentor the younger girls by encouraging more of them to move towards such fields.
The eleventh stakeholder engagement was also used to climax the GNA Tema Regional Office’s month-long activities to mark the 2022 International Women’s Day celebration and mark the first anniversary of the stakeholder engagement.
Speaking on the topic: “Prospects of women in the oil refinery sector: Women’s contribution to the success story of the Tema Oil Refinery,” Ms Essien said, “Media should give the platform to more women to talk about their operations and the technical things they do to encourage others.”
Mrs. Matilda Adane Okrah, TOR Maintenance Planner said women were underrepresented in the oil and gas industry in general and Ghana was no exception, stressing that industry players made many attempts to create a more inclusive work environment, but the numbers had not increased as fast as in other industries.
She said women remained underrepresented in the oil and gas industries across most levels, but especially at senior ones.
Mrs Okrah said despite these there is enormous potential to draw upon the increasing numbers of women with the requisite qualifications as more women were graduating with engineering and other technical degrees.
Mrs. Sika Ramatu Lawson, a Project Electrical/Instrumentation Engineer at the Department of Electrical Engineer at TOR, on her part said throughout her academic journey as an electrical engineer, females had always been less than one per cent of the total class population.
“I wouldn’t say it was easy through school, from secondary to tertiary we the females were few for example we were two out of 45 or five out of 50 in class, we were the focus of both our teachers and male counterparts,” she revealed.
Mrs Lawson recounted that her interest in engineering started at the initial stages of life; “as a young lady, I loved drawing, fixing, and repairing old gadgets, as well as loved mathematics which motivated me to pursue the technical courses from secondary to tertiary.”
She said women engineers like herself had broken the boundary and proved themselves in the oil refinery sector even though it was a predominated male-oriented field of work.
According to her, the female population ratio of TOR in the past compared to the current was encouraging, revealing that at a point in time there was only one female engineer amongst the host of men.
She said it was worthy to mention that now TOR had gallant ladies who were applying modern technology in various positions as technicians and engineers, chemists, and laboratory technicians, among others for the successful running of the only refinery in Ghana.
“We the ladies in Tema Oil Refinery especially those of us in engineering as well as the other departments continue to strive to prove to the world that women can do it in such male dominating environment and TOR’s success story wouldn’t have been complete without women professionals,” Mrs Lawson stated.
Source: Ghana News Agency