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In Ukraine, there are still stereotypes about the realization of women - especially about professions that are supposedly purely male. However, any woman can and has the right to develop where she wants, because professional development does not depend on gender.

 

Lika-Comfort is an engineering company specializing in air conditioning, ventilation and heat pumps. The company has several lines of work, a wide dealer network throughout the country, and also carries out wholesale sales of climate equipment to installers and shops throughout the Transcarpathian region. This powerful company is managed by one woman - Olena Tsiva.

 

"The company works on the development of the climate industry and education in the region and wants to change the vision of the role of women in engineering companies," explains Olena.

 

Thus, Lika-Comfort started the first climatic school "Lika Climate School", which increases the level of professionalism and skills of installers, assemblers and managers of sales of climatic equipment. It is not only about men, but also about women. Since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, within the framework of the climate school there is a grant program for training in engineering professions and work in the climate industry for internally displaced women. This program demonstrates that women can develop as professionals in the engineering and climate industries and can start their own business in them.

 

"Given the war and the demographic situation in Ukraine, we must create conditions for women to work. We should not ban them from certain professions, because they are "only for men". Women should choose whether to work for them as assemblers or long-distance drivers," Olena continues.

 

The school is not the only initiative of SEO Lika-Comfort to overcome gender bias. Once a month, Olena holds charity meetings for women called "Business Talks", where they discuss issues of female leadership. Special attention is paid to companies with female managers and suppliers. All funds go to help the BF "Zemlyachki", which is engaged in sewing women's military uniforms and comprehensive support of Ukrainian female defenders.

 

Olena also conducts training on improving the technical skills of women within the company itself. This, as well as the creation of jobs for women, had a positive effect on the work of the enterprise itself — its performance, competitiveness and stability improved. As one of the challenges of the wartime for Lika-Comfort was the relocation of male and female workers and the military obligation of men, the development of women as specialists in engineering became one of its priorities.

 

Among the other positive changes of the implementation of the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs):

 

"Actually, many more women want to ensure a different quality of life, reliable income, find their job, than the statistics show. Women's empowerment is about freedom, society's freedom from stereotypes, about respect for yourself and for those people who are different from you," Olena concludes.

 

This material was created within the framework of the initiative "Empowering the opportunities of women in business", which is carried out as part of the project "Transformative approaches to achieve gender equality in Ukraine", which is implemented by UN Women with the financial support of the Government of Sweden in cooperation with the Office of the Vice Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration.