Most people know Upper Egypt from Egyptian soap operas and dramas that often show Upper Egypt as a home to a lack of opportunities, but it may have had another face that did not come under the spotlight, and was missed by many who never looked at the glass half full.

From Assiut, in the heart of Upper Egypt, Reham Al-Baroudi, a young girl, graduated from high school with distinction. Success and excellence were not the only luck that Reham obtained, but before him she had a conscious family and agreed to complete her education in one of the most difficult fields, so Reham chose to study " Mining and Metallurgy Engineering.

Reham chose to enroll in a college described as one of the most difficult fields of study, which is mining and metallurgy engineering (Al-Jazeera)

This field was the preserve of men, as most of the job opportunities are in the desert with mining companies and exploration for oil and minerals, but Reham, who was brought up to achieve the impossible, could not accept despair, so the girl in her twenties worked after her graduation in a car maintenance center as a sales engineer, Then, gradually, she began to discover her passion for mechanics, and enrolled in special training in the same center to learn from scratch how to discover and repair car malfunctions.

Reham says - to Al Jazeera Net - about the beginnings of her journey with her new dream, "It was not easy for me to go to the maintenance workshops at the center, my request was rejected at first." Their looks and reproached hints because a female would work in their field that was the preserve of men. The difficulties that Reham faced were not only in the maintenance center, but also within her family, which did not easily agree this time with her exaggerated mixing with men, especially in light of the Upper Egypt society, which does not accept women's work easily.

Reham started a new phase of her life inside the maintenance center, so she left the sales sector, and began her work in receiving cars and discovering their malfunctions, then worked as an engineer for spare parts, then the ship's direction changed towards stability and marriage.

A whole year in which the young woman from Saida got married and gave birth to her only child. After 45 days of birth, the husband and son were exposed to a traffic accident. Reham lost all that she wished for in her life, and she was left with nothing but the work that she returned to;

As if fate had prepared another plan for the daughter of Assiut.

Engineer Reham explains to a group of girls how to deal with car malfunctions (Al-Jazeera)

"I went back to my work again, but this time I was not what I was, as I became a young widow, in a closed society that rejected me at first because I was a little girl, and after I became a mature woman, the rejection became stronger," she added.

Reham tells of the confusion phase that she went through after the death of her husband and child, saying, "Work was my way to confront the state of depression that afflicted me. I worked in the field of finishing and decoration work, then fashion and blogging, and in 2019 I returned again to the car workshop, where I found my true self."

From scratch, Reham returned to start from the workshop, towards a larger project, whose goal is no longer only to learn and work, but to transfer her experience to other girls, so that they do not find themselves at the mercy of anyone, simply because they are not familiar enough with cars, their malfunctions and spare parts.

Reham Al-Baroudi decided to open a workshop to train girls in Upper Egypt (Al-Jazeera)

"I started imparting my experience in mechanics through short videos at first, then I thought of implementing workshops to train girls in Upper Egypt to face and deal with car malfunctions, as well as those wishing to learn to reach the same profession in the field of car mechanics," says Reham.