Girls join Sophie to Design and Build Houses

Careful observation of most of our secondary schools in Cameroon shows a huge disparity in the number of girls and boys studying technology. 90% of parents consider Science, Technology, Engineering and mathematics (STEM) as a profession meant for men.

Coming from a male chauvinist background and experiencing many years of struggling through technical education to emerge as a female leader, I have built a strong influence to increase girls’ interest in STEM fields aimed at attracting and retaining girls in STEM.

Our ultimate goal is to create a Bootcamp to inspire and attract a thousand girls in 1 year in Yaounde to choose design and building construction as a career in the future.

This project will create a Digital Construction Makerspace for girls where I will run hands-on programs to spike interest and train unassertive school girls who are afraid and feel intimidated by technology but have the potential to learn STEM skills, to take Technical Education at school without feeling overwhelmed using simple technics.

It's an extension of our digital empowerment lab running since 2016 and we want to expand it to be able to train girls on design and building construction skills using Computer-Aided Design (CAD), AUTO CAD software – a design and drafting software application.

To reach my goal, I need 20 laptops, design software, internet connectivity, and 10 women in this field to join my journey and support this initiative with their technical expertise; for example to use computer-based software to create two-dimensional (2-D) drawings or 3-D models via short hybrid training sessions.