This was part of the four-day United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Africa Engineering Week, ending at UJ’s Doornfontein Campus on 4 September.
The week was held to highlight the importance of engineering in society and to expose young people to the industry.
Grade 10 and 11 pupils were addressed by Hema Vallabh, who has an MSc. in Chemical Engineering and is director of GirlEng (a subdivision of SAWomEng), which encourages girls with potential to pursue a career in engineering.
WomEng is a global organisation aimed at attracting, developing and nurturing the next generation of female engineering leaders.
Vallabh told the girls that women were the engineers of the future and that the industry needed women like them to dispel the myth that the field was about brute physical strength or masculinity.
She added that the engineering profession was all too often perceived as a career for grey, geeky, grease-monkeys in hard hats and overalls.
Passionate about imparting industry knowledge to young people in South Africa, she told the pupils they needed to understand who they were and what they were passionate about before making career decisions.
“Not all of you here may go on to pursue a career in engineering,” said Vallabh. “But at least if you choose not to, you will be making an informed decision and not one based on misperceptions about the industry.”
The girls were given glitter, glue, marking pens and shiny paper stars to decorate their pink hard hats and express their values and passion – emphasising and celebrating their individuality.
A visibly excited Nonhlanhla Pholofolo, a Grade 11 pupil from Aurora Girls’ High School in Zola, Soweto, said women should value themselves and work hard to prove that the world belonged to them, too.
“This event has made me change my mind about studying medicine. I now want to study mining engineering and will therefore study harder to get over 50% in my maths and science exams,” said Pholofolo.
