GirlEng: Empowering 1 Million girls through STEM education

GirlEng inspires, mentors and develops the next generation of female engineering leaders around the world.

The shortage of engineers being a global issue.  The number of women in engineering has been of particular concern as women are still grossly under-represented, with the percentage of women graduates in engineering still below 10% in many countries. The number of women in the sector is much lower. The empowerment of girls and women is also explicitly stated as a sustainable development goal (SDGs). Combining empowering women within the engineering context covers even more goals from access to education, equality, climate change and sustainable cities as engineers have a key role to play in reaching these goals.

Since 2006, our intervention at high school level have inspired young girls to study engineering, and provide mentors to help young girls transition from school to tertiary study. By 2016 we have worked with more than 14 000 girls and women in Sub-Saharan Africa. From the program 76% of participants wanted to pursue engineering. In 2014 our first cohort graduated as engineers in South Africa. We have replicated this program in a number of countries. In South Africa, we have moved the needle on engineering students from 10% before the program to 30-40% depending on the type of engineering

STEM skills are skills for the future. We ensuring girls have these skills by; Improving access to information for girls around STEM; Gamification of engineering projects for girls to learn through play; Provide girls with access to mentors and support networks; Provide role models and career guidance; Change perceptions accessibility around engineering fees to make these more accessible to girls.  WomEng’s GirlEng project currently runs workshops for high school girls, and is rapidly expanding through a train-the-trainer model as well as looking at online platforms to scale and reach the target of 1 million

Track the number of girls on the program - Empower 1 million girls through STEM career awareness

track the GirlEngers through surveys to look at application rates for universities - Increase application rate for engineering

The GirlEng program is the only program which globally that provides a holistic approach to girls and women’s educational development in the STEM field. Related organisations provide isolated solutions such as teaching girls how to code however do not continue developing their beneficiaries as they enter new phases of their educational development such as during tertiary studies and once they graduate as engineers. The GirlEng program is engineering focus and uses games to teach girls about engineering as well as a host of other key skills to make better choices.

Our technology, especially our engineering games and the gamification of learning uses appropriate technology for the developing economy context. Its cheap and efficient and allows us to scale across the world in both developing and developed economies with similar results. We also ensure that people are included in all our programs as the human factor in inspiring girls is critical.

We have developed our curriculum and learning programs to be open sourced as we collaborate with international organisations such as UNESCO and some foundations. The program is available to organisations interested in partnering with us to reach our mandate of 1 million girls in STEM. The program is free for girls to participate and the revenue is made through our signature pink hardhats which are purchased from us for girls on the program from corporate partners

The GirlEng program is part of a non-profit WomEng. Two years ago we pivoted our business to form WomHub, a commercial entity creating gender parity through education and technology. WomEng is our foundation and we funnel our profits into the organisation as well as seek funding by leveraging our global partnership with UNESCO to bring in other money for the program.

The key challenges is always capital - both human and financial. Our technology has to be appropriate in developing contexts and because of the low smart phone penetration and the high cost of access to internet we need to constantly ensure scale without exclusion which is a key challenge. Our programs thus become reliant on people to deliver them effectively and the finances to do so globally.

http://www.wise-qatar.org/girleng-south-africa

http://www.womeng.org/gallery/south-africa:-bringing-up-a-new-generation-of-girl-engineers

http://www.womeng.org/gallery/bbc:-women-of-africa-|-building-the-next-generation-of-female-engineers

There is a lot to learn and to share. There is an African proverb that says "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." to reach 1 million girls through STEM education and change the status quo, we will need partnerships and collaborations which is what we hope to achieve from Solve

The biggest collaboration is with UNESCO, Unilever, a number of Women in Engineering Chapters attached to Engineering Councils, World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO), Motsepe Foundation

There is some overlap with Girls Who Code - our difference is that we focus broadly on engineering