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Discussion about entry: SAWomEng - motivating, empowering & celebrating the next generation of women in engineering
This is discussion about SAWomEng - motivating, empowering & celebrating the next generation of women in engineering.
Comentários
Naadiya,
Your work sounds wonderful, and with South Africa's strong work in Science and Technology, I think your organization could make a huge impact and serve as a model for others. Could you provide more detail about the three divisions you mention, perhaps with some concrete examples of the projects, workshops, and networking?
Hi Jon,
Our model definitely has the ability to scale internationally. Our divisions are part of a greater pipeline - what we like to call the SAWomEng pipeline dream, and it is as follows:
1. The problem is we need more females to become engineers - we need to get the information out there and create positive role models - enter GirlEng
GirlEng targets high school students. We invite female students between 15-18 yrs old to attend a 1 day intensive workshop. The morning of the workshop we cover topics such as what is engineering, the different types of engineering, career development etc. In the afternoon, we get our hands dirty. We give a mini engineering project to the students, and they have to be engineers for the day. They are assisted by mentors-who are university students who have volunteered their time. At the end of day, the application to universities is explained and we often go through steps to getting into an engineering program. Sponsoring companies are on hand to give out bursary and scholarship information
2.SAWomEng Conference is our flagship event. It is a week long interactive workshop. Students from all around South Africa apply and we select the top 70 female engineering students across all engineering disciplines. The students are divided into teams. They are tasked with a technical project. Our projects focus on sustainable engineering. Last year, delegates were taken to impoverished townships and had to provide simple sustainable upgrade solutions. Usually, they engage with the projects in the morning, and in the afternoon, we bring influential women to speak and share their experiences. Each delegate is provided with a mentor-a woman in engineering, and they do a fun activity together- last year, they cooked and shared a meal, previously they went paintballing. Our conference culminates in students presenting their technical projects to a panel of judges and the winner is announced at our gala dinner. It is an intense week, with little sleep, high impact, and a great experience for all. Each team must complete a conference paper on their project and solutions.
3. SAWomEng@network is really a platform for females who have graduated to network, but also to improve their life skills. They also serve as possible mentors. We run 1 day workshops covering financial management, career development etc.
I could write pages of information on what we do. We are in the process of updating our new website, and will go live this weekend. Please feel free to visit www.sawomeng.org.za where you will find videos of previous conferences. These give a glimpse into what we do at SAWomEng