STEM Guyana’s sustained expansion of its services across Guyana aimed at introducing a strong science and technology “curriculum” in both coastal and hinterland communities received a boost through recent engagements from the Upper Corentyne Technical Onstitute, the Tain Campus of the University of Guyana, Tagore Memorial Secondary School and the Non-Governmental Organization FACT 2.
Arising out of those encounters STEM Guyana recently trained ten club coaches who are now assigned to create and lead STEM clubs in Region Six.
The new Region Six clubs will join the already existing Region Six STEM clubs at Crabwood Creek, New Amsterdam Library and the recently opened STEM club at the Lichfield ICT hub and library.
According to the co-founder of STEM Guyana, Karen Abrams, the instructors have been trained to teach Building and Programming Robotics and Scratch Coding and have also been coached in disciplines related to club management. The trainers will also be expected to provide support for the registration for the forthcoming local Robotics League.
Abrams told Stabroek Business, however, that if STEM programmes are to become an option for young people at a community level, businesses linked to those communities will have to “step up” in support of the initiative. “It is really a question of businesses investing in those communities where they have strong customer bases and where those bases might include young people. In a sense it is as much a matter of investing in their own growth as it is about the STEM programme.” She said that STEM Guyana is prepared to meet business owners and Business Support Organizations to share information with them that would allow them to make up their minds about being part of the programme, adding, “We’d love to sit with these people and see what might come out of those meetings.”
According to Abrams, STEM Guyana considers it “a signal achievement” that it had now taken a decisive move towards “significantly empowering” residents – and more particularly, young people in Region Six. “Residents of these communities can now look forward to enrolling in soon-to-be announced programmes that will be local to their communities,” she said. Train the Trainer initiatives are also being managed by STEM Guyana Trainers Aisha Peters, Shahad Hussain and Ashley Adams and are being co-sponsored by the Department of Youth.
Peters says that the trainers were concerned with removing the notion that STEM-related activity belongs exclusively in the domain of academically gifted young people. “Our job is to dispel that notion. Our programme begins at the foundation level and does not require any particular academic strength. In fact, the programme exposes and reinforces math and science concepts which in fact helps participants to strengthen their knowledge in the academic areas. So everyone is welcome,” Peters was quoted as saying.
Over the past month, STEM Guyana has been steadily expanding its training reach outside of Region Four, a development which Abrams says is consistent with the objective of eventually growing into every community. Next week a STEM Guyana team will be travelling to Lethem to open the Lethem Library STEM Club and the initiative has secured the support of Minister within the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Valerie Garrido-Lowe and Minister of Public Service within the Ministry of the Presidency, Dawn Hastings, along with ExxonMobil.
Abrams says that the STEM Guyana-driven national expansion of a robotics programme in Guyana has also received the “considerable backing” of the Ministry of Social Cohesion, Department of Youth and the network of ICT hub sites rolled out by the Minister of Public Telecommunications, Cathy Hughes, who has agreed to donate robot kits to five selected teams to enable their participation in the National Robotics Competition.
