Khadjetou
Today, we meet a woman who practices a profession often considered reserved for men:
Khadjetou works in aluminum carpentry. The twenty-eight (28) year old woman is the perfect example of a young person succeeding thanks to opportunities provided by Caritas. Having failed to earn any diplomas until 2017, she engaged in small-scale shoe and perfume trading. A friend told her about the center, she went and began personal development training, then computer science, commerce. Then, she was introduced to many trades, but Khadjetou saw in aluminum carpentry a possibility to quickly find work after her training since, according to her, people no longer choose wooden doors or windows.
Nowadays, aluminum is preferred, she insists. Therefore, she underwent a six-month training, but the young woman confesses that this seems too little to fully know the profession. A two-year training, for example, would have allowed her to join a company when hers failed. Indeed, after her studies, Khadjetou founded her workshop with partners and was the manager and knew the company's problems well, especially financial. Knowing that work in aluminum is very fluctuating according to the times, she thought, for example, of advancing the workshop's rent when large sums of money came in to prepare for leaner periods.
Thus, she was able to start earning a salary that allowed her not to depend on anyone for her expenses, especially for paying her medical bills in Dakar or helping her loved ones. However, she recounts that when she went to Senegal for her treatments, the others continued working at the workshop, but they kept the revenues for themselves and saved nothing for salaries or rent, which led to debts for the company. However, for Khadjetou, the real problem was that she was the only woman and that she had to manage men as a manager, and therefore, her colleagues thought she wanted to keep the money for herself. This caused major group cohesion problems and the associates simply stopped working. When debts became too significant, they proposed selling the machines that Caritas had provided at the workshop's opening and sharing the money, which Khadjetou refused arguing that those machines were given to work and not to sell.
This decision was supported by Caritas, which continued to follow the young woman's profile. Khadjetou therefore stored the equipment at her home and is currently looking for new partners. Today, she is very grateful for what Caritas has brought her. She explains that she learned that, even if she did not succeed in school, she could make a living, even starting from very little, especially thanks to the entrepreneurship training that encourages students to invest small amounts in small trade, to look for a need in the consumer and teaches them how, from that, to save and invest to grow.
For Khadjetou, being a woman has never been a problem with her clients, as she always takes care to give a date when she is sure the work will be finished so that they do not make unnecessary trips, unlike some of her competitors.