A woman from Birmingham has found herself the only female on a bricklaying course, saying she began learning the new skill after losing her office manager job due to the pandemic.
iNews reports that Ruksaar Altaf said there were some surprised people from outside the course, but that the college was ‘very supportive’. While she said she was very much out of her comfort zone, she also wants to be a positive role model for her son.
Ms Altaf, 26, signed up to a 12-week OCN Level 2 course in bricklaying with BCTG, a training organisation in the West Midlands, learning practical skills. So far she said she has worked on building walls and a chimney.
“You’re doing something, you’re on the go and once you get interested in it, you want that wall to come out perfect,” she said.
“Being the only female [on the course] you get very competitive with all the males, I want mine to be the best. Everyone has actually been very helpful and I feel like one of the boys. There aren’t many females in the construction industry and I know we can excel so I thought let’s give it a try.”
She is also taking a beauty course alongside the bricklaying course, saying she wants to develop a side business to her main career in construction. She said that there are so many women into beauty, but she’s not a ‘typical girly-girl’, and the bricklaying course was something more suited to her.
Ms Altaf learnt about the bricklaying course from her support worker at Birmingham Children’s Trust after being brought up in a children’s home.
“Coming from that environment… you grow up with a negativity towards you – you are always a statistic, but since I became a mum… I do what I want, it doesn’t bother me. I enjoyed the support I used to get, and I am still working with my advisor,” she said.
According to the GMB union, in 2019, before the pandemic, 12.5 per cent of construction industry workers were women, which has risen from 10.4 per cent in 2009, but the union says it will take 200 years to reach gender parity at that rate.
Darcie Richards, 25, from Norfolk, proves that Ms Altaf is not on her own in the ‘bricklaying boys club’, as she works with her brothers Louis and Jody and dad Ricky, where she regularly shares video of herself constructing walls, mixing cement and doing heavy lifting without breaking a sweat on the popular social media platform TikTok, according to The Daily Star.
The Norfolk resident is hoping to inspire other women to forge a career in the male-dominated industry, and she has garnered over 100,000 followers and 2.1 million likes on her @rattlekings TikTok profile
Ms Altaf says she hopes to qualify in August when she then plans to go on a level 3 course followed by a BTEC construction management course.
“I just want to be the best role model to my child, that’s my main thing,” she said.
“I want to show him if you work towards things you can get whatever you want.”
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