Get To Know: Sandra Aguebor; Nigeria’s First Female Professional Mechanic(pics)

 
Sandra Aguebor is
the CEO and Founder of the Lady Mechanic initiative and Sandex Car
care. It is true that in Nigeria women are gradually getting into
corporate positions that men usually dominate in the past. However it is
uncommon to see women who are professional car mechanics.

In Universities today, women like Sandra have dared to study male-dominated and practical courses.
Sandra
Aguebor discovered her calling in her teenage years. She attributes her
engineering talent to a divine encounter she had at 13.

“It
all started through dreams, at the age of 13. I saw Jesus Christ
teaching me how to fix cars in a series of dreams that lasted seven
nights.”

Sandra Aguebor
Nigeria’s
first lady mechanic had to face a host of challenges and setbacks from
her male counterparts, family and the society at large. Somhow she
channeled the obstacles as a source of motivation and positive energy.
Certain
that this was what she wanted to do, Sandra gave engineering her best.
She started working at a local garage during her secondary school days.

“I
would get to school at 8 am and leave at 2 am. My overall was already
in my school bag. From school, I would dash to the garage and work till 6
or 7 pm.”

In time she started working with the Nigerian Railway Corporation.
After 10 years, she became her own boss and  established her own car garage which is still operational till date.
Sandra has been in the car repair business for 32 who years now.
Sandra Aguebor
Making
a success out of her career, many could clearly see the lady was right
when she chose the profession that most women would never even give a
thought.

“For me to become the first female
Nigerian mechanic, I had to work five times harder than men to prove
myself. Now, many people don’t know my name, it’s ‘Lady
Mechanic’ everywhere I go.”

Sandra showed her
philanthropic side by reaching out to women in need. She assembled them
all and enrolled them in her teaching classes.

In
2004, Sandra founded the Lady Mechanic Initiative. The organization
specifically grooms women in the business of fixing cars. Thus, helps
them to be employed and financially independent.
Another
interesting detail of the trainees is that the some of them equally
found the initiative to be a sort of therapy. Some of these women used
to be commercial sex workers, victims of sex trafficking, school drop
outs and financially incapacitated mothers/wives.
Sandra Aguebor
Records
show that since 2004, Sandra has empowered and trained over 1 000 women
in fixing cars under the Lady Mechanic Initiative programme across 5
Nigerian states.

“Our clients keep coming back –
they prefer us because we are determined to be better than a lot of
mechanics who take their job and their salary for granted,”

Sandra
Aguebor has a vision that by the year 2025, she must have trained up to
100 000 ladies who would serve as pillars and pathfinders across
several African communities.

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