The Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN) has taken its sensitisation campaigns to girl children across primary schools in Cross River State, southern Nigeria.
The President of the association and her team, who were at Duke Town Primary School in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, taught some of the female pupils on ways to transform certain waste into useful tools.
The children, who were very excited to be participating in a form of engineering crafts and arts, learnt how to use waste materials like straw, empty water bottles and rubber strings to construct balloon cars and other useful toys.
The President of APWEN, Dr. Adebisi Osim used the opportunity to advise parents against discouraging their daughters from undertaking engineering studies.
Emphasizing the significance of APWEN’s special school outreaches, Osim averred that the girl child graduate to become good engineers if not better than their male counterparts.
According to Osim, APWEN was on a mission to encourage young female children to develop an appreciation for “engineering, technology and even computer. Most of the time, we take our advocacy to secondary schools and other private schools.
“We choose to make this year’s outreach different. Besides, Duke Town is one of the oldest primary school in Cross River and it is a public school. This is our way of providing career counselling to children at an early age.
“We need the young girls to begin at this early age to set the goals of becoming engineers. They need to understand that they have equal opportunity to be engineers in future despite attending public schools,” Osim further averred.
She explained that the team decided to sensitise girl children by introducing them to utilising easily available materials for useful toys, noting “they see and understand what a car is. It captured their interest. They were very excited constructing their own toy cars and moving it around. It made them feel fulfilled.”
Osim explained that the girl child can also achieve much in the engineering practice and catching them young is one of the ways to drive their interest.
The APWEN president also urged parents and guardians to encourage their daughters to take up engineering practice, noting that most parents do not believe in the ability of their female children to excel in certain male-dominated fields.
“it is time we change the narrative. As parents, it is our duty to train our children. When it comes to career development, we must endeavour to avoid stereotypes, which relegates our daughters to the roles of homemakers.
“We have women, who studied engineering and making impact, working alongside the men to establish milestone projects that are transforming society. So, we need parents to be supportive of their daughters especially when they are creative and show interest in building or creating things at this young age,” Osim maintained.
APWEN rounded off the outreach with the issuance of certificates of participation to the selected female children as well as donated some school supplies to them through the head teacher.
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