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From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
Imaguero College, Benin, Idia College, Benin and St. Maria Goretti, Benin in Edo State recently emerged winners of the Osaide Foundation for Girls in STEM competition, held in collaboration with the Association of Professional Women Engineers in Nigeria, Benin Chapter.
Imaguero College scored 50 points to emerge 1st, Idia College obtained 44 points to place 2nd while St. Maria Goretti recorded 43 points to emerge 3rd.
Addressing newsmen at the Next Gen Bootcamp with the theme: “Bright…Minds, Bold Futures, Learn, Lead, Thrive”, the founder, Osaide Foundation, Dr. Patricia Opene-Odili, said 50 students from 10 girls schools, were selected to participate in the competition in the state.
She said that each of the 50 students who participated will get consolatory prizes of items worth N25, 000 while each of the 15 students that made their schools proud would receive items worth N55, 000.
Opene-Odili said the idea is not about the money but to encourage the girl-child to develop interest in sciences.
Opene-Odili, while speaking on the rationale for grooming girl-child in sciences, said it was to catch them young.
“I ‘m the founder of Osaide for Girls in Science and Engineering Foundation and my passion for girls starts from the fact that when I was younger, most of the people who come to talk to us about career talk, choosing a career, we always had doctors, pharmacists, lawyers come to school, but we barely engineers come to talk to us.
“And in the course of studying engineering, I also discovered that girls are a minority and I was in class with about 63 boys, but we were only two girls. And so for me, the passion and the zeal to bring in more girls into the engineering field was born from when I was in school.
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“And having graduated and working in the industry before I retired, I also discovered that there are very few women who are engineers and the best thing to do, no matter how few we are, is to take each other’s hands and to make sure we all succeed.
“So now we’re catching them young, making sure the girls, especially the indigent students, have the opportunity to also experience the sciences and that’s why I’m a STEM advocate”.
The chairman, Association of Professional Women Engineers in Nigeria, Benin chapter, Engr. Perpetual Oby Obeta, urged the girls to know that they have what it takes to become what they want to be in life, noting that they should also know that engineering is a field they can do very well in inasmuch as it’s dominated by the male folk.
She said that all that they needed to do is to have the flair for Mathematics.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Works, Edo State, Engr. John Obanor, called on the students to leverage on the competition to improve on themselves academically.
He advised the students not to look down on themselves because they are girls but see themselves as special people with the potential to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the boy-child.
Obanor commended the Osaide Foundation for the initiative to encourage the girl-child to take interest in the science subjects.
Speaking on behalf of the winning team, Angel Irhabor, an SS3 student of Imaguero College, Benin, thanked the organizers for giving them the opportunity to test their abilities in some core science subjects.
She said with the exposure gotten from the competition, they are confident that they can also go to other competitions outside the state and excel.
