Cheerleading Girls in STEM — A Mesrenyame Legacy
Here is to women who open doors and clear career paths for other women…
On Friday, March 10, I got invited to a mentorship session organized for Junior High School (JHS) students at My Redeemer School inside Sowutoum in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana.
Mesrenyame and Friends(MaF) is a social enterprise founded by Abigail Mesrenyame Dogbe, and it seeks to mentor girls by exposing them to STEM careers and equipping them with the skills. MaF focuses on increasing STEM participation among primary, junior high, and senior high school students. The MaF engages participants in boot camps, hackathons, STEM festivals, mentorship sessions, vision board parties, field trips, and STEM clubs. With Mesrenyame and Friends, mentors are called “STEM buddies” — people interested in STEM education.
The catch for me, however, is that Abigail is currently not physically in Ghana but wanted us to do something for Ghanaian girls to commemorate International Women’s Day. This year’s theme was DigitALL: embracing equity through innovation and technology. Through this post, I will share my experience as a STEM buddy, my personal experience with Mesrenyame, and the significance of the mentorship session to me.
My Personal Experience with Mesrenyame
I joined PyLadies Ghana in 2020 through their beginner Data Science Bootcamp. I was still doing my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering. Throughout October of that year, I shared content on breast cancer, and Mesrenyame reached out to me about a potential Breast Cancer Awareness event for Pyladies Ghana. I was a newbie in tech, comfortable in my shell, and still figuring out if I wanted to pursue tech beyond the boot camp. I had to lead the session! Through this task, I researched more about breast cancer and collaborated with more ladies in the community. I started warming up to participating in PyLadies activities.
Side note: I love talking about health and technology and how both can be amalgamated to improve healthcare delivery.
She then extended an invitation that I join the communications team. One task after the other, I settled into helping the team curate Python-themed content for social media engagements. I steadily built confidence in my public speaking, collaboration, and content curation skills and coiled out of my shell.
Consequently, I gave a lightning talk about my journey into tech in December 2021. In March 2022, I mentored ladies in the Pyladies Data Science beginner boot camp (exactly where my journey began). She also charged me to give a technical talk the next time I had the opportunity; in December of that same year, I started blogging about concepts I struggled to learn in my analytics journey.
Abigail gradually delegated tasks, allowing me to make mistakes while still acknowledging my efforts (visibility). She checks in occasionally and asks, “Joana, what can I do to help you in the coming days?” (once a mentor, always a mentor!)
I am currently pursuing a career in data analytics.
Experience as a STEM buddy
The girls we met were Junior High School (JHS) students; if they go through the regular Ghanaian educational system, it will take them roughly eight years to get to my current level (3 years of high school, 4–6 years of university, and one year of National service). I decided to share my journey from junior high to studying General Science in senior high and Biomedical Engineering at the university. And finally, navigating into mainstream tech as a data analyst.
The pool of stem Buddies for the day was very diverse. The other ladies have the following bios:
- Stancy, Backend Developer at Nalo Solutions and a Social Entrepreneur.
- Vanessa, Communication Specialist.
- Dorothy, Software Developer at Turntabl.
The biggest lesson for the day was that irrespective of the career paths the ladies choose, the world is still transitioning into digital spheres, and they all must participate in the move. Out of about 30 students, only 6 of them had personal access to the internet and phones. We encouraged the ones with phones to be curious and make the most of the opportunity by learning technical skills like programming with their phones.
There were interesting questions from the ladies, and I will try to recollect them without reconstructing them.
- Why are women not presidents? ( we told her the world had seen female heads of state and presidents, the likes of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia) and Angela Merkel (Germany). This goes on to entrench the fact that they need access to information). Locally, throughout our history books, Ghana has not seen a female president, and she may be right, given her reality.
- Why do women not support other women during elections? ( A little background, Ghana saw a female vice-presidential candidate during the 2020 national elections)
- Why is Ghana rich in resources but not rich in the economy?
You could leave your thoughts in the comment section, but one comment from Dorothy stood out for me.
‘You don’t expect people to accept you and support you because you are a woman, but present the value you possess. Venture into the spaces, put in your 100%, know your stuff, and confidently project the value.’
We did a quick activity where the ladies were tasked to write things they loved about themselves and their future aspirations.
A personal observation
My Redeemer School has several empowering posters on every wall in the school, from the reception to the last class. The base message expressed through the art pieces is the strength of a diverse society, the innate ability of everyone to succeed, and the hope of a bright future. The special message Mesrenyame had for the ladies further deepens the empowerment culture in the school:
I am remarkable
I am brave
I am smart
I am building my future
I choose to think positively
I can make a difference
There are many exciting experiences awaiting me
Above all, I can do anything I put my mind to
If I work hard for it
Significance of the Day
No matter how well I succeed in trivializing my achievements, less than 5% of the young girls in my community will have the opportunity to enjoy similar feats. Minus financial constraints, they also don’t have access to information and mentorship. Mesrenyame saw the need to organize this event even though she couldn’t be physically present.
What have I done for the SHS graduate, the first-year university student struggling to find their feet in my community, my alma mater, and my extended family?
I had an epiphany to take on the legacy and extend the grace to girls in my community. I could achieve this by teaching them the skills I have acquired and consciously sharing my experiences; this way, they can also impact their communities with their skills and the unique opportunities those skills will expose them to.
‘Tis the time to embrace my light and consequently light the candle for the next girl child! I hope you also do the same for other girls in your community.
Photo credit: Kwame (Unless otherwise stated, he captured all the images)
