The following two stories from Honduras and India are extracts from the booklet 'Women in the Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Industry."
DIANA MITCHELLE VALADARES JACINTO (HONDURAS)
My name is Diana and I am 18 years old. I live in the city of San Pedro Sula, one of the most industrialized cities in Honduras and the most developed city in terms of refrigeration and air conditioning, as a result of its agricultural-industrial sector.
I come from a poor family and am an only daughter. My mother was the one who supported me, working as a laundry washer; my father, well, he worked when he felt like it. When I was born, the country was reeling from the aftermath of hurricane Mitch in 1998. During this time, people were going through terrible economic difficulties; my parents lost everything in the hurricane.
Throughout my childhood, I suffered a lot, not because of poverty, but rather because of my father, who was an alcoholic and a rude and violent man. Whenever he came home drunk, he would fight with my mother and insult her, hit the tables and doors, and throw things as I hid in an old closet and watched my mother defend herself somehow. Thank God that he never beat my mother, but despite that, she would always cry because of the insults and humiliation she was subjected to.
He never took an interest in me and he didn’t care about my education. He would give a small part of the money he earned from working to my mother, and the rest he would spend on alcohol. When there was not enough food, my mother somehow managed to adjust so that everyone still ate.
- "What has struck me most in this field are the ways of working and the processes of change.”
In spite of all of this, I did not encounter any obstacles to my studies; on the contrary, it was very good. I was particularly obsessed with nature- and history-related subjects. Two years ago, when I took up refrigeration for my baccalaureate, people started criticizing me and telling me: “Seriously, you want to get into this field? This is for men.” Others were saying: “A woman can’t do heavy work.” Some members of my family would even call me “hombrecita – little she-man», and the worst is that sometimes they wouldn’t say it to my face, but instead tell my mother. Even until recently, my mother started having doubts and believing that I would never find a job because I’m a woman.
I ignored them, and I am even more motivated to continue in this field. I’ve met many people who motivate me more when they say “when you graduate, you can clean the air» than when they say that I’ll be able to lift myself out of poverty and that my mother will see the results of the efforts she has made for me through the years. Right now, I’m involved in a dismantling job at Ramón Villeda Morales airport in La Lima.
What has struck me most in this field are the ways of working and the processes of change, when I started out, I did not have the remotest idea of how refrigerators and air conditioners worked. But what I like most is the subject of refrigerants, since I had never imagined the damage they can do to our planet.
Personally, I already had some knowledge of ozone layer depletion and global warming, and they were among the topics I was obsessed with. This problem is severely affecting my country; in recent years, the climate conditions have become abnormal. There are days where the temperature reaches 40°C and then drops suddenly.
We need to stop the problem. My country is very much affected by the changes in climate due to pollution from more developed countries, which do not realize how Third World countries suffer. There is damage to agriculture, to our forests, to the Honduran jungle, especially to animals, and to the population in general.
ROSHINI REBECCA EASOW (INDIA)
My interest in RAC began in my undergraduate years, when I carried out a project to produce a “water cooler cum heater”. This was way back in 1976, before the concept of energy efficiency had even been formulated. There were just three girls in the class and two of us did the project by ourselves – we didn’t want boys in our group, because everyone would attribute the success of the project to them!
When I undertook my Master’s degree in heat transfer and thermal power engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Madras, there were no women in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, not even in the administrative staff.
I have been associated with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) since 1999, when I established a student branch at the Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai.
The idea is to get students interested in the RAC industry. Students are usually interested in automobiles or aeroplanes – they didn’t have any awareness of the vastness of the RAC industry or how important it was for the environment, especially since it’s an energy consuming industry. I joined the Indian Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ISHRAE) at the same time and I am happy to say that, due to our efforts, awareness of the RAC industry has greatly increased and students are hoping to get jobs in the industry.
When I joined ISHRAE and started attending the seminars and workshops, I was the only woman around. It was difficult, but as a mechanical engineer, I was ready to face this challenge. I was elected as the President of ISHRAE’s Mumbai Chapter in 2012, a proud moment for me, since I was the first woman President in all of the society’s 41 locations since its establishment in 1981.
- “During my professional career, I have motivated a large number of students to enter the RAC industry. Some have also become entrepreneurs"
In 2013, I was appointed ISHRAE’s National Chair of Student Activities, meaning that I had to get the student members to participate in different tasks pertaining to RAC through projects, quiz programmes, scholarships, etc. Students were allowed to attend ACREX, India’s annual international exhibition on air conditioning, heating, ventilation and intelligent buildings organized by ISHRAE and endorsed by ASHRAE. This exhibition is held in the large cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Students from all over India are sponsored to come and visit and volunteer. It gives them a perspective of RAC, so they understand that it’s not just about a domestic refrigerator or a room air conditioner. It’s a vast industry and its efficient functioning is essential for the benefit of the environment.
During my professional career, I have motivated a large number of students to enter the RAC industry. Some have also become entrepreneurs. Through my lectures, I raise awareness of the challenge of finding environmentally friendly refrigerants and the environmental aspects of our lifestyles. For instance, I tell students to drink the healthy coconut water packaged by God, or lemon drinks, or buttermilk, instead of the energy intensive fizzy drinks packaged in tin cans!
Students drink Coke in a can because it’s the “in” thing, never pausing to think about its detrimental effects. They are shocked to realize that our lifestyle is destroying our planet. I was elected as the President of ASHRAE’s Mumbai Chapter in 2016, after serving as the Student chair. Here again, I found that I was the first woman President among all the chapters in the ASHRAE region at large, which comprises Bangladesh, Dubai, Egypt, India, Nigeria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Türkiye. I have attended the Chapters’ Regional Conferences (CRCs) in Cairo
(Egypt), Madrid (Spain), Istanbul (Türkiye) and Bangkok (Thailand). This has given me an opportunity to meet people from the RAC community from many countries.
In 2001, my institute gave me study leave to pursue my PhD at the prestigious IIT in Mumbai. I was already 48 years old, but I felt that was just a number – why not fulfil my dream of earning a PhD. I worked on liquid desiccant based air conditioning. My advisor was ten years younger than me!
Let me say something about my personal life here, since it is part of the challenges I have had to overcome. My first born child was a boy (I have a daughter, too, who has followed in my footsteps and earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering) who was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic disorder that leaves the child in a wheelchair by age ten with a life expectancy of 16 to 20. He was completely dependent on me for all his activities, yet I could keep him in a normal school till he completed his tenth year, and I held on to my job at the engineering college. Every day was a struggle. As predicted, he passed away at age 16 in 2000 and it was after that that I went for my PhD.
My PhD research required the fabrication of the liquid desiccant-based system, which involved going to workshops to get the system made. We filed an Indian patent and a European patent for the system.
In recognition of my training abilities, I am classified as a Distinguished Lecturer (DL) of ISHRAE. I give talks on energy efficiency, renewable energy, geothermal systems and RAC for beginners. I am the only woman in the Distinguished Lecturer list.
ISHRAE has an initiative called Women JISHRAE, in line with Women in ASHRAE. Our aim is to encourage women in the HVAC industry to come forward and be trainers and leaders. I am proud to be one of the role models for this group.
To summarize, in India, with the power and reach of ISHRAE, we have been able to popularize the RAC industry with students, including large number of girls, and inspired their aspirations to enter the industry. Still, we have a long way to go. India has many powerful women politicians, but my concern is that in India, though many girls do opt for engineering, we still need women to come out of their comfort zones and emerge as leaders in the HVAC industry.
