Women in Engineering mentor school girls
The East Akyem Municipal Directorate of Education has organised a career outreach programme in engineering for girls in junior high schools in the municipality at Kibi.
Organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and Women in Engineering (WINE), on the theme: “My Promising Future,’’ the programme also formed part of this year’s celebration of the Ghana Institution of Engineers (GhIE) Week.
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The (GhIE) was officially founded in 1968 to succeed the Ghana Group of Professional Engineers as an autonomous professional body and the engineering week is celebrated to give engineers the opportunity to educate and inform the public and other concerned authorities about their contribution to national development.
It was a mentoring outreach programme by WINE, which was attended by girls in the Kibi area.
Participating schools
The participating schools included Kibi State JHS, Kibi Presbyterian, Kibi Methodist, Kibi Anglican, Kibi Ofori Panyin Memorial, Kibi Demonstration School, Kibi Islamic, Kibi Pano Presbyterian, Kibi School for the Deaf and M. A. Experimental.
Others were the Kibi Technical and Kibi Secondary Technical School who were taken through the various engineering processes including engineering at home, school and the use of engineering in waste disposal.
Some female engineers who took turns to address the participants were Ms Victoria Berkoe (Electrical Engineer), Dr Paulina Agyekum of Ablin Consult, Ms Mercy Akyaa Payne, a Civil Engineer, and Mrs Sylvia Asare, also a Civil Engineer.
Giving her closing remarks, Mrs Sylvia Asare, who led the team of WINE, urged the girls to aspire higher and develop the interest to become engineers.
According to her, Ghana had a low number of engineers and out of the number, less than 10 per cent were women, a condition she described as “too bad considering the fact that women form the majority of the Ghanaian population.”
She said engineers were needed for development and a country that lacked engineers would lag behind in development and, therefore, urged the girls not to think that engineering was a male-dominated field.
Staying focussed
The East Akyem Municipal Director of Education, Mrs Elizabeth Amankwah, in her opening address, advised the participants to remain focused and see themselves as capable of doing courses in fields considered as male-dominated, including engineering, and asked them not to be distracted by boys or let any other thing derail their education.
She cited the example of the female engineers who were the resource persons and asked the participants to see them as their mentors and aspire to be like them in future.
The Paramount Queenmother for the Akyem Abuakwa Traditional Area, Okyehemaa Nana Adutwumwaa Dokua, who is also the President of the Eastern Regional Queenmothers Association and a member of National Council of Queens, chaired the function.
She said for the pupils to achieve their dreams, they needed to be obedient and stressed the need for them to respect their parents and teachers and also be serious with their studies.
A participant from the Ofori Panyin Memorial School, Liandra Nana Kyerewaa, advised her colleagues to remain focused in order to achieve their dreams.