Aruba Faridi, a young ambitious woman from Karachi, is Pakistan’s youngest female aeronautical engineer, a designation she acquired by defying both class and gender obstacles.
Aruba is the youngest of five siblings from Gulshan-e-Hadid.
Aruba was naturally drawn to the area of engineering because both her father and brother were engineers. Aruba recalls her childhood days by saying, “Only tools and electronic devices amused me, therefore I played with them instead of dolls.”
She used to assist her father in repairing household items when she was younger. Repairing machinery became an interest for her soon after. Aruba vividly recalls accompanying her father to their house, which was still under construction at the time, and fiddling with the wiring and switchboards that protruded from the walls.
The lack of financial resources, according to Aruba, was the most difficult aspect of pursuing a profession in her selected sector. Her father worked for Pakistan Steel Mills, which had meagre finances. Aruba had to take exams administered by a German and British organisation in order to be certified as an aeroplane engineer.
Aruba explains that she works with a range of small planes, most of them are 19-seaters or smaller. “It is my obligation to keep an aeroplane in good working order so that it can fly safely.”
An aerospace engineer, according to Aruba, has a more responsibility than other sorts of engineers because it is a sensitive field with various hazards, and there is no room for error.
The inclination to restrict girls from progressing is referred to as a “social sickness” in Aruba. She emphasises the importance of eradicating this “sickness” and encourages parents to teach their children to be gender-neutral from an early age.
Outsiders discouraged Aruba, like every other woman who dared to enter a field dominated by males, at every step of the way. Countless times, she was informed that a woman couldn’t achieve as an engineer.
She encouraged other women not to listen to critics and doubters since they can only gain attention and praise if they believe in their own abilities.
She believes that teachers, regardless of gender, should examine students’ tendencies at a young age and encourage them to focus on disciplines in which they excel.
