Star sponsors pioneering FemEng in Malawi project from star students at University of Glasgow
Star Refrigeration is sponsoring FemEng in Malawi, a pioneering student project led by a group of seven female engineering students from the University of Glasgow in collaboration with Malawi University of Science and Technology.
Over the past few years, Star Refrigeration has supported an international collaborative engineering project developed by FemEng – a student-led network aimed at linking together women in the School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow.
The group has a number of objectives including outreach work with schools, networking events with industry professionals, social activities and international collaborations. The project aims to encourage more young people in Malawi into a career in STEM and in particular, inspiring young women to apply to university. It follows the highly successful FemEng in Rwanda project ran by the group from 2016-2019 which saw an over 100% increase in the number of applications to courses at the University of Rwanda.
The FemEng team will be working virtually alongside a team of volunteers from Malawi University of Science and Technology to develop and deliver STEM workshops to school girls in the surrounding area throughout August 2021. The planned workshops will include techniques in mechanical, biomedical, product design, chemical, civil and other engineering disciplines.
The main topics planned for these include ‘Make your own cardboard car’, ‘Make your own wind turbine’, ‘Make your own cardboard prosthetic hand’ and a ‘Design and Build’ style workshop. Each workshop will provide further information on each engineering discipline, worksheets and interactive presentations and a discrimination and diversity workshop.
Star Refrigeration will be supporting the FemEng project for the fifth year. The company’s sponsorship will be used to provide a laptop for the Malawi University of Science and Technology team, clean drinking water, lunch and snacks for the school children taking part, as well as the material supplies needed for the workshops.
Catriona Wall, a team member of the FemEng group at the University of Glasgow says “The idea for the project came from the highly successful FemEng in Rwanda which ran from 2016-2019 and managed to visit over 3600 children from all over the country.
FemEng in Malawi is again a completely student run project which relies on the support of sponsors to make the project possible. Therefore, we are so grateful to Star Refrigeration for helping to make this project possible.”
Dr Andy Pearson, Star Refrigeration Group Managing Director said, “We are delighted to be supporting FemEng in Malawi as part of our commitment to making engineering accessible to children and specifically to inspire young girls into further education, in particular STEM subjects. The effect that the FemEng African initiatives have had on STEM education over the past few years is really impressive. We congratulate the student engineers on the hard work they have put into deigning the project and we wish them the best of success in August.”
FemEng in Malawi relies on the support of sponsors to make the project a reality. The group continues to welcome sponsorships to help fund the initiative on two levels – financially and through the provision of workshop materials. Current sponsors of the project include Tunnock’s, Renishaw and Robertson.
For more information on the FemEng in Malawi project and to get in touch with the team, visit the FemEng website https://femenginmalawi.wixsite.com/uofg or twitter @UofGFemEng