Navigating a Path in Mechanics: A Young Girl’s Journey to Breaking Stereotypes

My name is Tiana Stewart. I’m 14 years old. I attend ST Ignatius Secondary School. And we understand that you’re interested in mechanics. Can you tell us about where that interest started? Uh, yes, it, well, it first started when I saw my dad that he’s does the working. And when I look at it, really, it’s not basically all about playing with tools or moving the tools anyway. It’s like, you know, you got the, you got to need a skill to do it. And when I look at it, like, I think it’s really interesting just, you know, not being around, you’re just watching, but you’re learning something for the trade. What do you enjoy most about it? What I enjoy most about this is getting to learn more about fixing the parts of something and helping people out because mostly the people, they come here and like, they need your help in in something that they don’t know and you’re the person who can help them because you know most of the work. Okay. And how does your father feel about teaching you? Well, at first he was like, when I asked him to work with him, when I asked to work with him, he was like, this work is not for ladies or woman, right? At first. And he said like, cooking and washing and cleaning, that’s for lady. But then like, I see something very interesting. Like I find like, you know, more than any People out there you got something to do right in your yard something right there you don’t need to go out and look for work it’s right at your house and he tell me that it’s not for woman well then I said well it’s not for woman and I watch many videos with girls doing the same thing as men can do anything a girl can do like what men do even my grandmother tell me that that what man can do a girl can do he said it’s because she told me a man cannot feel the pain of a labor as a girl and that same pain is more harder than a man work so what did he say? And well I kept bothering him with that question and then he finally just gave in and he said okay let me give it a shot okay. And how are you managing that with school when school reopens? Well, when school reopens I basically like using every time that I that I have a free time free period because when school open I’ll have a lot of work like assessment and SBA to finish and complete but I’ll make sure I make time for that. Is there any encouragement you would like to give to other young girls like yourself who may want to try something and they are being told that oh it’s not a female or a lady’s job? Um, yeah, what advice would you give To them, what can I say to them? MHM? Well, to all the young girls out there who people have put negativity into them and tell them that there is nothing they can’t do in this world, but just let them know that anything in this world is possible.