Breakng barriers
Lagivale pursues career in male-dominated field
MEET Mere Lagivale, all the way from Nabukeru Village in Yasawa who is a first time tertiary student pursuing her Bachelor of (Civil) Engineering (Honours) at the University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus in Suva.
“This is the first time that I’m away from home to study so it was a bit of an adjustment at first,” Ms Lagivale said in an interview with
She turns 19 today and leaves behind her parents and siblings in her hometown Lautoka to pursue what she calls “my passion”.
“In this field, you have to be really focused and not let anything distract you. So while here in Suva, I’m going to be totally focused.”
Ms Lagivale is a budding offshoot of yet another generation of barrier-breaking women who are heading into the male dominated world of construction as a civil engineer scholar.
For her, it’s not about being female or male, it’s about doing what she naturally wants to do as a continuation from her high school studies, the fact that she loves drawing and looking up to her father who works at the Water Authority of Fiji as a supervisor – “he is my role model”.
“I was always interested in fixing broken things – toys, speakers, etc and I loved to draw.
“I went to Natabua High School where I studied technical drawing (TD), physics, mathematics and applied technology (AT).
“Those were my fields of study in high school. I loved TD and physics so it’s a passion that started very early for me. What I’m doing now is just moving forward from that.”
She would also help her dad around the house in parts of the house that needed fixing or when they extended their house recently, she was actively involved in that project.
“There were also my AT projects in high school such as the construction of doors, burglar grills, so I’d draw those.”
Yesterday, Women In
Construction week kicked off all over the world in an effort to raise the visibility of women working in this typically maledominated field.
For Ms Lagivale, her personal experience is she is more likely to be misunderstood by those on the outside than be victimised by the male in the fraternity.
“I’m used to being around male because it’s been that way since high school. For example there were only three girls in my AT class in a class of around 40 students. And it’s usually other girls who would find it unusual that I’m doing what I do instead of something that is more ‘girly’. But the boys in my form would look at my drawings and openly admire them and get excited that I could produce those things. So I guess it’s the mindset that needs to change.”
Her advice to young girls wanting to go into this field? “Do it. There’s a lot of demand for engineers so, the more the better. But be prepared because there’s going to be a lot of challenges especially from people outside who look at you and say: aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else? If you really want to do it then go ahead and do it, but with a focused mind. Nothing should distract you.”
Ms Lagivale hopes to get a job at Water Authority of Fiji “because that’s where my father works and so I can learn a lot more from him.
“But hopefully be paid with more money,” she smiled.