Sidónia Figueira secures a harness around her waist and begins to climb. Her team has arrived in a narrow alleyway in a neighborhood on the Island of Mozambique to repair a tilted pole damaged in March, 2022 when Cyclone Gombe washed across the low-lying coral isle four kilometers off the coast of mainland Mozambique. Members of the community line the cobblestoned street to watch the action, including two young girls who stand below, looking up at Sidónia. 

When Sidónia returns to the ground, she wipes the sweat off her brow. It's 100 degrees and she swelters under heavy equipment in her bright orange utility jumpsuit. She instructs a five-man crew accompanying her to straighten the pole and they follow her lead, lining up behind her to pull a long rope. After 16 years working as an electrical engineer at Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM), Sidónia became the first female supervising engineer of the Mozambique Island unit. 

A Woman-Led Path to Recovery 

Cyclone Gombe had swept through central Mozambique just weeks before and the impact was hard to miss. Flooding killed over 60 people, massive trees lie uprooted, oceanfront restaurants are destroyed, and tin roofs hang detached from homes. In natural disasters like this, widespread power outages can take months to restore. Sidónia, however, led an emergency response team that reinstated power in only one week. 

“Some of the men didn’t think I would be able to rebuild the city in a short space of time,” said Sidonia. “The men thought they were better and more knowledgeable and they despised my ideas; however, I persisted.” 

Working around the clock, Sidónia’s team repaired 81 poles in only seven days, an impressive feat for her team of ten and a task that might take other teams up to a month. When colleagues wanted to go home, Sidónia encouraged them to keep moving forward and insisted they stay. “We can’t sleep until electricity is restored,” she told them. 

Today, Mozambique Island and the surrounding region has electricity in part due to Sidónia’s persistence and leadership.

But it may not be long before her tenacity is needed again. Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of natural disasters and Mozambique is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to its coastal location and high rates of poverty, both of which create challenges for recovery. 

However, Sidónia’s achievement in the wake of Gombe demonstrates the role that women are playing as leaders to counteract the rising tide of natural disasters. The 2022 IPCC report revealed that gender inequality makes a country more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. But, according to decades of research, gender-balanced teams are more productive, innovative, and profitable and a study by Nature Communications found that gender-equal countries are better prepared to mitigate and adapt to climate change. “Women are capable and make an incredible difference in our work,” said Sidónia. “A woman is tireless, flexible in thinking, and does things with certainty.” 

An Unlikely Career Path

Sidónia developed an interest in electricity at a very young age when her father, an engineer, taught her how to use his tools, which was rare for a girl of her age. Though the Nampula Region where she grew up has a matrilineal tradition, with land and property handed from mother to daughter, women are still limited in their opportunities, including career choices. In Mozambique, only 29% of STEM graduates are women, with even lower numbers in more rural areas like Nampula, and few in Sidónia’s orbit pursued careers in engineering. She wanted to be one of the first. Sidónia enrolled in electricity school and started her first job at EDM. From early on in her career, she excelled. Managers at EDM encouraged Sidónia to take on more responsibility and she found herself rising quickly to leadership. 

Working in a male-dominated industry as a woman, however, comes with challenges. At EDM, only 16% of employees are female. Male colleagues often doubted Sidónia’s abilities, believing that they could work faster without her. Despite the doubts from her colleagues, Sidónia pushed herself to learn and grow. “The challenges I faced gave me more strength to continue to fight and show the potential of a woman,” she said. 

Today, Sidónia supervises a gender-balanced team of ten engineers, with five men and five women. For Sidónia, supervising other women gives her a responsibility which she does not take lightly. When some of the women struggle to perform in certain areas of their jobs, she gives them extra work to help them improve. She has also helped them diversify their skill sets and learn about other service areas at EDM. It’s important to Sidónia that more women like her succeed at the company. Sidónia has four children of her own and her eldest daughter, Vânia, hopes to follow in Sidónia’s footsteps and study engineering.

EDM’s Path to Gender Equality

Sidónia represents a growing number of women who are rising to leadership at EDM. The utility prioritizes gender equality and has set an ambitious target to increase representation of women from 16 percent to 40 percent by 2030. EDM also participates in the USAID Engendering Industries program, which helps companies identify gender equality interventions throughout the employee lifecycle. Since joining Engendering Industries in 2018, EDM has hired 114 women, trained 847 women on technical and soft skills for career advancement, and developed a comprehensive Gender Strategy to drive its ambitious targets forward at the company. The utility’s women’s association, Forum Mulher, of which Sidónia is an elected member, also helps drive gender equality forward at EDM. 

Engendering Industries also partners with Johns Hopkins University to deliver the Self-Empowerment and Equity for Change Initiative (SEE Change) Empowered Employee Training which focuses on personal agency and leadership strategies to help strengthen women’s professional capacity and effectiveness. Sidónia participated in workshops in November and March and cites the experience for helping her handle conflict and challenges in life and think with a more empowered mindset. The training has provided her with tools, like a strategy to reframe preconceived limitations, that she can use when she feels overwhelmed or faces difficulties in life. These skills are critical for women in male-dominated sectors, since they often have to overcome resistance and bias to achieve success in these fields. 

Sidónia plans to continue growing the skills and empowered mindset that she has learned from trainings such as the Empowered Employee Training. “Today I'm not afraid of discrimination and I'm prepared for any challenge to improve my professional career,” she said. For Sidónia, there is no limit to what she can achieve – from her personal power to the power she will restore for future generations. For Mozambique Island, and the young girls who watch Sidónia repair tilted poles, Sidónia serves as a powerful role model and a reminder of what women can accomplish.