Feb 28, 2013

AMMAN -- Sawsan Ghaith is a housewife who tends to her kids, cleans her house and cooks for her family. She also fixes broken pipes, dripping taps and clogged sinks.

Driven by her belief that women, especially housewives, should know how to handle everyday house-related glitches, Ghaith knows all about her house's water pipes and sanitation networks and how to fix them when something goes wrong.

She is one of more than 160 housewives who received training on basic plumbing from the Jordanian Business Women's Forum (JBWF).

"I've always loved to learn how to do everything by myself. I paint walls and I know how to replace empty gas cylinders, while most women wait for their husbands or sons to do so for them," Ghaith said.

"And now, I shop for new taps and parts of pipe networks and install them by myself," she told The Jordan Times.

Um Rajaa, a 42-year-old housewife, said that plumbing know-how is essential for every woman.

"I never knew how taps or toilet flushes worked before and certainly never knew what to do if a pipe breaks or a tap drips. I took part in the training course last year after a friend of mine participated and encouraged me," the mother of four said.

During the training, Um Rajaa learned about the parts that make up taps, sinks and drainage holes. She also learned how to unscrew and replace them.

"One important thing we learned is how to install water-saving devices to reduce consumption and how to fix dripping taps," she told The Jordan Times.

Hayat Bakir, director of the training project at the JBWF, said that teaching women the basics of plumbing is part of a wider initiative that seeks to address water loss in households.

Many households incur additional costs in their water bills because of leaking pipes, taps or shower heads, Bakir said, noting that leaks at home take a long time to be fixed, thus much water is lost.

"The majority of housewives don't know how to fix leakages or even find valves and close them when a pipe breaks or drips. Also, housewives wait for their husbands to bring plumbers, and this usually takes time," she added.

Seven training courses were held last year in Amman where housewives were taught basic plumbing related to water pipes, taps and sinks in their homes, according to Bakir, who noted that more women were asking the JBWF to hold similar training courses.

"The women were trained on how to detect a leak and fix it, install water-saving devices, about the route of hot and cold water, the function of valves and how to close them in cases leakage happens, among other basic plumbing instructions," Bakir said, adding that a guide book on domestic plumbing was also distributed to participants of the training courses.

She noted that the training seeks to familiarise women with basic plumbing, but many of them became interested in learning more and pursuing a career in the field.

"Female plumbers in our community are not common... But maybe the fact that many housewives face plumbing problems on a daily basis and can't allow a [male] plumber inside their houses in the absence of their husbands, should give rise to more female plumbers in Jordan," Bakir told The Jordan Times.

© Jordan Times 2013