March 2016—Internships are providing women engineering students in Afghanistan with the experience they need to compete for jobs in a profession dominated by men.

Mariam Safi was a student at the Engineering Faculty of Kabul University when she joined the Afghan Women Internship Program, part of USAID’s Afghanistan Engineering Support Program, in January 2013.

One year later, she landed a job as a civil engineer, thanks to her outstanding performance as an intern.

The internship program provides women with technical knowledge and experience to complement their formal education, ensuring these women have the skills and knowledge to compete for jobs when they graduate. Interns also receive training in resume building and interview preparation. Following the training, the interns are invited to interview for a full-time position at a USAID partner engineering firm.

As an intern, Safi gained practical knowledge in engineering through software training, labs, shadowing activities, personal instructions from professional engineers, and site visits.

As a result of her stellar performance as a civil engineer at Tetra Tech, where she had interned under the Afghanistan Engineering Support Program, Safi was given responsibililty for managing the submittal review process for USAID’s Gardez-Khost Road Phase IV project. She attended client meetings, managed budgets, resolved design and development problems, and reviewed and approved project drawings.

“USAID supports all Afghan women,” said Safi. “And the internship program gave me the opportunity to learn to be a real engineer and to prove my skills in Afghanistan, where female engineers are often dominated by male engineers.”

Successful graduates of the internship program have gone on to work with USAID, the Ministry of Energy and Water, and private engineering companies.

The Afghan Women Internship Program, which began in 2011, provides the opportunity for women in their last year of engineering studies to intern at a USAID partner engineering firm and subsequently launch their engineering careers upon graduation. Twenty-four Afghan women have benefitted from the program during the 2012 to 2016 academic years.

USAID’s Afghanistan Engineering Support Program, which runs from November 2009 to November 2016, provides training in the energy, transportation, water, sanitation and communication sectors.

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