This is the second year that CIHT and our amazing STEM ambassadors have worked with The Fest Hub, Ramboll and West Ham football club to deliver the STEMFest Inspiring Careers programme. Delivered in a new format, the programme has proven to be successful yet again inspiring young people to consider careers in STEM through football. Now the programme has finished for the year we wanted to share some feedback on the potential impact.
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This year, the programme was condensed into two impactful days to help students retain information better and allow everyone the opportunity to attend Ramboll’s London office for a site visit. The site visit was designed to boost the student’s confidence, knowledge and understanding of engineering applications in a work focused environment. It provided an invaluable experience, and one measure of success was that several students enquired about work experience opportunities following the site visit; and are still talking about the positives they took away from it.
CIHTs brilliant volunteer STEM ambassadors provided their knowledge, skills, experience, and expertise to support students at Palmers Catholic Academy to design a bridge to provide access to a London football stadium. The students were split into groups and given different project roles within a fictional engineering and construction company.
CIHT volunteers supported each group through workshops to design their bridge then test their design’s robustness. With support from representatives from West Ham football club, students designs were judged and were awarded certificates for best design, most sustainable design and best presentations.
Other CIHTs volunteer members also helped the students to develop employability skills.
Sailesh Sedhain, an Assistant Structural Engineer at Project Centre, part of Marston Holdings, who supported the STEMFest Inspiring Careers programme said:
It was amazing to see how a fun, hands-on activity could ignite a genuine interest in STEM, all those children’s young minds were full of ideas, questions and endless energy; it was wonderful to see.
Feedback recieved from the supporting football clubs and schools about CIHTs support and the new method of programme delivery was overwhelmingly positive.
Emmanuel Afolabi, Founder of The Fest Hub said:
I just wanted to thank CIHT for their support; we successfully delivered all our programmes with our sports partners/schools and alongside West Ham, Charlton & QPR football clubs.
Next year, we will also be welcoming the addition of more clubs as our 2-part STEM day programme appears to be the preferred method of delivery.
The Fest Hub are seeking more volunteers that would be keen to support students, to kick start their journeys into STEM career pathways. The Fest Hub programme provides support for young people particularly from disadvantaged communities, enabling them to transition into the wider world of work and get into STEM based careers.
If you would like to support the program or find out more about how you can inspire the next generation through football, please contact us to register your interest at professionaldevelopment@ciht.org.uk
If you would like further information on the benefits of being a STEM ambassador, including being able to support wonderful initiatives such as Powering Futures, please watch this insightful webinar on what being a STEM ambassador is all about. If you feel inspired and would like to become a STEM ambassador, please watch this 3 minute video on how to sign up, or contact CIHT at: professionaldevelopment@ciht.org.uk
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