Vision Board Party with 45 Ghanaian Girls — A Mesrenyame and Friends STEM Feast

Romans 10:14–15

“How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? How can they hear without someone preaching to them?

…how can anyone preach unless they are sent?

‘Dream big,’ ‘Everything you think about can come true,’ ‘The world is full of possibilities’, ‘girl power!’ ‘Do not settle for less,’ and it goes on and on.
All these mantras are as good as seeing, hearing, being told about the possibilities, and perhaps working with some resources that could usher one into the self-actualization point.

So, how can a girl from a small town dream about a future she has not seen? How can you believe in yourself and your abilities when you have not met either of them? How can they be inspired if no one consciously inspires them? Who cares and is willing to make the time and resources to tell the girls about the successful paths that worked for them? The Bible text has been ringing in my head since the event.

On 2nd August 2023, Mesrenyame and Friends organized a vision board party for 40 students from St. Peters R/C Junior High School (JHS) in the heart of Kumasi (a big city in Ghana). The nature of the activity necessitated a smaller crowd (unfortunately). I will talk about the selection criteria, the STEM buddies, the vision board party, and my observations.

The Selection Criteria

Initially, we were given 80 students to work with, but the number was later reduced to 40, based on the discretion of the school authorities. The school has 3 forms (levels) in JHS, and each form has an average of 120 students. Teachers considered and selected students who took their ICT lessons seriously, who had exercise books, and were generally well-behaved.

I wished we could speak to the entire student body, even if it meant only the faithful 40 getting the vision cards and the other students just listening in. Words are seeds, and everyone deserves a shot at dreaming.

STEM Buddies

On the day of the event, we had a total of 6 buddies volunteering. Our backgrounds span data science, software engineering, UX designing, communication expertise, and biomedical engineering. We all took turns to share our journeys from JHS to our current roles. The bottom line was that they could choose any career path, but the world is evolving in favor of technology, so they should pursue the skills as well as a learning and adaptable spirit and incorporate them into their ultimate interests.

Vision Board Party

A vision board party is simply a gathering of friends with the intent of setting goals and creating templates for them. We intentionally spoke about STEM careers, what it meant to set goals, and most importantly, why they have to write them down and refer to them as often as possible.

Being in Junior high school in Ghana means being a few months away from the basic education certificate examination and choosing courses (general science, business, general arts, visual arts, home economics). These courses and electives will be the determining factors for choosing university majors or even some traditional careers if the students pursue higher learning and education in Ghana after high school.
With this in mind, we designed the vision cards to suit their needs and also about the closest milestones the Ghanaian educational system requires of them. We had sheets with the STEM careers we could think of for them to keep and research more on them as well.

The fields on the vision card were: I want to be? I want an A in…, something I love about myself, and I want to get better at. Words that make me happy, dream SHS. The buddies now joined them to help them populate their cards.

Observations

1. We had some of the ladies asking for SHS options to write down. This was interesting because there are so many senior high school options, and every year, the government supplies schools with the list and other important information about the courses they offer, but I understood them. I knew about senior high schools and the dynamics because, at their age, I had seen my older siblings and people in my church go to boarding houses and come back acting all matured and polished. I knew some schools were just okay and others I had to hope and pray for. I knew because I saw people in my immediate circles do that.

• I later found out that the ‘obedient’ students are advised to go through Vocational and Technical schools and then to Technical Universities just so they can become self-employed after their studies (after all, the people that go to regular high schools through to the Universities, end up without jobs.)
• One of them wants to be a veterinary doctor in the future, but she wants to pursue agricultural science at SHS. There are a few high schools in Ghana that I know, offering agriculture as a science elective. The little I know about veterinary medicine at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology is that they require the biology elective instead, and this lady has a few weeks to choose her schools and electives. Her exam was the week after the event. (I wish her the best in her exam)

Whatever paths they choose, I think for them to thrive in the next 20 or 30 years, they need certain fundamental skills and abilities. If, for example, they venture into woodwork and carpentry, 3D fabrication is gaining momentum and cuts across even building work, so knowing these technologies will shape their training and learning path. They all need coaching and guidance!

2. Growing up, I heard parents threatening to send their wards to government schools (aban school — aban is the Akan word for government) because they weren’t pulling their weight with their education. I grew up with the mindset that those schools were under-resourced and it took some grit to succeed (on the Ghanaian scale). You can imagine my excitement when I saw the whiteboards (instead of the blackboards) and their ICT lab with a projector. However, they had just 6 PCs in the lab serving 120×3 students. Just not enough. (I hope they at least get a modern projector and some exercise books for the other student body who weren’t selected to join the vision party.)

Out of the 45 (5 other final-year students were granted permission to join), only a handful had personal mobile phones. I remember talking to them about researching (Googling) the other STEM fields we couldn’t talk about and then realizing that they wouldn’t have the means. Even if they have unlimited access to the lab, there’s no Internet access dedicated to the students and teachers.

How can they dream if they have no idea about the possibilities? How can they fuel their dreams if they have no oil (resources)?

I am happy this activity was executed, and the demographics of the students Mesrenyame and Friends chose this time. Someone had ‘I am worthy of love’ on her sheet; when I asked her what it meant, she said ‘I don’t know oo, this Madam told me.’ referring to one of the STEM buddies. We told them it was fine they didn’t know a lot of these things about themselves, but it’s their awakening time to think of all those aspects of their lives. There’s still so much I would want to share, but I’ve touched on the most striking concepts.

Wishes

1. Can we adopt the girls one at a time, even if not to make financial contributions to their future, we could direct and coach them about personal development, this way could watch the seeds we’ve sown in them grow. Their headmistress wishes we had included the boys and is asking that we do the outreach every 3 months.
2. If you want to support the students with stationery, laptops, and even digital skills as a nonprofit, you can contact Abigail Mesrenyame Dogbe.

I am glad I took part in this project. I wish their clean minds and souls the very best in life, and I hope they don’t settle for less. There are so many opportunities and scholarships available globally, that they could aim for and apply to transform their lives, but how will they know if they have no access to the internet, mentorship, and coaching? I started imagining schools in very remote areas and their prevailing conditions. We definitely can’t reach all of them, but we can nurture the ones close by.

Bonus

I saw this very shy girl; she had covered her work and was waiting on her friends to ask them what she could write too. She had a scar on her forehead (my dad does too, he has a story about how it happened). I asked her what her story was, and she simply said it was her tribal mark. I was embarrassed and curious at the same time, embarrassed because I felt I should have known but curious because, from my Religious and Moral Education lessons, these marks were mostly on the cheeks. (We all still have some learning to do!)