Page 5 - Women Pushing Dirt June 2021
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Pushing Dirt Like her Mother DiD:
FroM nigerian Daughter to
“ConstruCtion Jane”
Sometimes, you just have to be in the right experience. Not only that, but she was too
place at the right time. young to realize some people find it strange to
see a woman pushing dirt.
Depending on how you look at it, Jane
Olaewela’s journey to becoming “Construction “She’s a superwoman to me. She can do
Jane” started when she was six years old in anything,” Jane said of her schoolteacher
Nigeria … or when she was on a Greyhound bus mother. “No one told me it was unusual to be a
from Boston to New York, twenty years old and woman in construction, because she normalized
frustrated with her education. it for me.”
One of Jane’s most vivid memories from her On a Greyhound
childhood was of a mother who wasn’t afraid to
push dirt. Her mom, Stella, had no experience Bus to New York
in construction. She was a high school teacher.
But that did not stop her from taking charge and Flash forward. Jane’s family relocated to
assigning herself the role of project manager for the United States when she was ten. Jane’s
the construction of the family home. fascination with construction found unity with
an artistic streak. She spent hours designing her
Little Jane watched with awe as her mother “dream home” using Microsoft Paint.
hired architects and tradesmen, approved plans,
and supervised the creation of a home that her If you want to build things, you become an
family would live in … all from nothing. engineer, right? When it came time to attend
college, Jane became one of the few young
“It blew my mind that buildings didn’t always women to pursue an engineering degree. Only
exist!” she remembers of this formative
one in five engineering students are women, and
Jane was one of them.
But she wasn’t happy. Engineering turned out
to be far more practical and analytical than her
creative mind had expected it to be. When she
boarded that Greyhound bus to New York, she
was deep in the throes of academic frustration,
Jane Olayiwola
Jane Olayiwola
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