Success story

Heba started off by visiting the Vocational Training Center in Beitunia, run by the Lutheran World Foundation (LWF, one of the USAID funded Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Program's 12 local implementing partners). Initially she thought that the school might not accept her, as a young woman from an underprivileged background. Instead, the directors and teachers at the LWF welcomed her, especially after noticing her commitment to developing her skills as a technician.

Heba remembers that time well: “I enrolled in my first course, and I was surprised by the stimulus package offered to me, covering everything from my course tuition to my daily transportation to and from Ramallah."  Upon completion of a year-long intensive course, Heba quickly found a job.  After working in a number of smaller companies, she was recruited by her current employer, Vodaphone.  Heba now works as the Head of the Department of Maintenance and Sales at the Vodaphone Center in Ramallah. 

Heba's path to her current position was not always smooth.  In her first job, she found the work environment quite difficult, mostly due to the condescending attitudes of her customers.  She explains, "My work began with major challenges from the nature of this male-dominated field. Once I was attending a client, and as I took hold of his device he asked: “Are you the person who’s going to repair my phone?!"  I answered "Yes," and his reaction was a look of contempt and suspicion.   I learned that I had to stand up and confront ideas like this.”  Eventually, however, through a combination of hard work, determination, and quality training, Heba has proven herself to her customers and her fellow co-workers as a valuable and dependable technician.  According to Heba, “Condescending looks and judgments continued for some time, but eventually, once people discovered my abilities, they would return and refer even more clients to me."  Heba's female customers view her in especially high esteem, as they are proud to see a young woman like them working in a traditionally male-dominated field.  Although they initially doubted her decision to pursue vocational training, Heba's friends and family have gradually become supportive of her work.  Indeed, Heba is now the main breadwinner for her parents and siblings.    

Heba sends a clear message to her family and peers, calling on all young men and women to, as she says, “deviate from traditional patterns of thinking.  We must move toward realizing the real needs of society, and take informed steps to meet those needs.”

So what does the future hold for the first female cellular phone technician in the West Bank?  Although she holds a high-level position at Vodafone and has received several competitive job offers from other business owners, Heba has other plans: to open her own cellular phone repair business in her home village.