POLAND Meet Klara the constructor of the future

‘Klara Buduje’ (Klara Builds), which has been published by the Erbud Foundation, is a story about a girl who decides to make her dream come true and build something that no one has ever seen before. It is also about relationships and self-confidence. The book has been written by Jakub Skworz, the author of the bestseller ‘Mania Skłodowska’ about Maria Curie-Skłodowska, and has been illustrated by Paulina Derecka. Erbud is hoping to address a projected shortfall of personnel in the Polish construction sector by encouraging women to enter it.

In the coming years, construction sites will be lacking about a half a million workers. We, at Erbud, are already thinking about the challenges associated with this. We want to ensure a competitive market, and ‘Klara Buduje’ is the first educational step in this direction. We are already thinking about girls who will enter the labour market in about 20 years; time.
Agnieszka Głowacka, the vice-chairwoman of Erbud and one of the few women on the boards of construction companies in Poland

According to data from the Polish Central Statistical Office (GUS) and Eurostat, the percentage of Polish women completing higher education in Poland is 38.8 pct, which is higher than the percentage of male students (26.9 pct) and also higher than the EU average (35.2 pct). And although in 2020 women made up 58 pct of the total number of students in Poland, their percentage at public technical universities was only 34 pct.

The media patron of the book is Wysokie Obcasy (published by Agora), and the honorary patron is the Copernicus Science Centre. The data on for women at universities was provided by the initiator of the project, ciekaweliczby.pl.

The proceeds from the sales of the book, which is also published in Ukrainian, will go to the Erbud Foundation and be used, among other causes, to help orphaned children enter adulthood and in the relocation to Poland of children from an orphanage near Kyiv.