WOMEN IN CONSTRUCTION BENEFIT FROM CONSORTIUM

Sharika Harris is using her plumbing skills on the Obama Presidential Center, putting together drain tile, casting iron and drain pipe for the parking garage. PHOTO PROVIDED BY SHARIKA HARRIS.
Sharika Harris is using her plumbing skills on the Obama Presidential Center, putting together drain tile, casting iron and drain pipe for the parking garage. PHOTO PROVIDED BY SHARIKA HARRIS.

WOMEN IN CONSTRUCTION BENEFIT FROM
CONSORTIUM
 
BY TIA CAROL JONES

Sharika Harris works as a plumber on the Obama
President Center project. She became interested in plumbing when she was introduced to it during
her pre-apprenticeship program at Chicago
Women in Trades. Out of all the trades, plumbing
was the one that stood out to her, it was the
one that was the most interesting to her.

“I never thought I would be able to work on a project of this magnitude,” she said.

Harris and Tenna D. Monroe are two women who are working on the Obama Presidential Center.
The Obama Foundation convened the We Can Build It Consortium after receiving $3 million from
Bank of America to support its workforce development and community support initiatives. The We Can Build It Consortium and the Obama Presidential Center developed a pipeline of talented people in the construction industry.

Partners for We Can Build It include Chicago Women in Trades, HIRE360, Revolution Workshop, St. Paul Community Development
Ministries, Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters and IBEW 134. Through the Chicago Women In Trades program, Harris has made
lifelong mentors and friends. She liked the group of women in the plumbing program and the camaraderie they had. The part that piqued her interest the most was when they had to solder copper and move around materials.

During her work at the Obama Presidential Center,
she and her team have laid thousands of feet of drain tile and put up cast iron drain pipe. She said the work has been hard, but good. She has learned a lot in the year and a half she has been working on the project.

It means everything for Harris to work on the project, especially since it is for President Barack Obama. Her first time being eligible to vote, she voted for Obama. So, to be on this project means a lot to her.

“I’m able to tell my son, he’s the first President
I ever voted for and I was a part of building out his
dream and what he wanted to bring to the city,” Harris said. Her advice to other women who are interested in the skilled trades: Come in, work hard, be willing to learn and be prepared to take off.

Monroe works as a Carpenter Steward on the
Obama Presidential Center project. She got her start as a Carpenter when she saw some construction workers working on the sewage main and asked them if they were hiring. She went to become a union worker and has been in the skilled trades since then. That was almost 30 years ago.

Monroe said working on the Obama Presidential
Center project has been amazing. Everybody gets
along and it is the first job site she has worked on
where the majority of the workers also looked like
her. “I really like what they’re is doing with the community, bringing in young Black youth, introducing them to the trade and different aspects of the trades,” she said.

Monroe sees all the programs that are available
to people interested in the skilled trades as a good
thing. She was not aware of those programs when
she got started in the industry 28 years ago. Now, she is trying to get her daughter involved in the skilled trades program with Lakeside Alliance as a machine operator. For more information about We Can Build It and Chicago Women in Trades, visit www.cwit.org.

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