JEDDAH: There are often raised eyebrows when male workers see her at the Riyadh Metro project’s construction sites, but Rima bint Sultan bin Turki bin Rabiean believes she has earned the right to be there.

The 25-year-old architect is working on one of the largest railway projects in Saudi history, a SR22.5 billion initiative that will see a metro built across the capital city by 2018.

As a child, Rima was always fond of drawing. After studying architecture at Prince Sultan University in Riyadh, she graduated at the top of her class and soon joined the company carrying out the project as its first Saudi woman employee.

Rima says she faces some difficulties at work. She has shifts of up to 12 hours in the field, and has to contend with the intense heat. However, she remains determined to leave her mark on this historic project.

Rima is responsible for “architectural drawings of precise plans, attends meetings, supervises large machines manufactured for drilling in Germany, and visits the construction sites every week.”

She works alongside two Spanish female engineers with long experience in the field, and another Saudi female mechanical engineer. She is the first and only Saudi architect to join the metro project.

“My work on the metro project is a golden opportunity because I have made contact with considerably experienced people who are among the world’s top engineers,” she says.