On the 30th of September 2011,the 3rd WAFRIC (Women Aviators in Africa) conference was held in Ghana to open the door for many African girls who want to be involved with Aviation. So the girls from the AvTech Academy were invited by the organizers of the conference to speak at the event .
The girls prepared for their first ever public presentation which they really worked hard towards in order to encourage other young ladies who are interested in getting involved with Aviation. At around 11:00am on Friday the 30th the students were called to give their presentation which basically expressed their passion for Aviation. Juliet Kuruwaa started by talking about how she got the chance to get to Kpong Airfield, where she got the opportunity to fly in a light Aircraft during the "Fly Me Day 2010". This experience changed her way of viewing things in the way that pilots see. So she went away thinking about how she can get much closer to planes and through her passion and determination she was invited by WAASPS to spend few weeks at the Airfield to learn more about how the planes fly. Through coming to the Airfield Juliet learned e.g. about the four forces of flight and many other things, which had also helped her to do so many things in her everyday life and especially in school . Because Juliet paid attention to everything that she was taught during her stay at the Airfield, she showed that she had the potential and was offered a place in the Academy where she is now learning to become a pilot and engineer.
Emmanuella Nyekodzi Mawunyo spoke about how she had an upset at home one day and decided to go in-search of a job that will keep her alive since there was no one she could go to for help. She saw a sign that indicated where the airfield was and decided to try her luck. When she got there and she explained to the people there, what her mission was and she got given a digging bar to start digging out stones from the runways. She did very well and worked hard so that one day she was given a trial flight by one the of the pilots at the field. She saw many amazing things that day, but one of which made her very sad, she saw many villages that did not have any road nor school. So she told herself: "I would like to learn to fly so that I can take planes to those deprived villages to encourage them to learn hard in school and if possible , give them a little flight of encouragement."
Emmanuella also said learning in the Academy is different to learning in a normal school, because they are given the chance to put their learning into real life practice, which helps them a lot as young people to remember what they have been taught .
Lydia Wetsi was the next one up. She talked about how she had been working at the market, selling cloth with her mother, when three people came into her shop looking for cloth to buy. When they asked her mother what happen to Lydia's arm, the touching story of an untreated insect bite, that had lead to the constriction of Lydia's whole right arm, made the people ask her mother to send her to the hospital to see if the doctor could do something about her arm and Lydia's mother gave her go ahead. After the hospital and the initial treatment, she was taken to Kpong Airfield and was shown around planes and told that they were built in Ghana .
Lydia said, she was given a flight one day and after that flight she was asked what she wanted to become in the future , she said she wanted to be a hairdresser when she grew up . She was told about the new school that was going to be started soon and was asked if she would like to be part of it. But she asked herself, who would pay her school fees. In the end, Lydia was lucky enough to be sponsored by some generous people to be able to attend the AvTech Academy .
July this year , Lydia was sent to Korlebu teaching hospital to have her surgery on her arm. After the surgery, she can now do her own take off and 90% of her own landing. We are hoping to send her next year for the surgery on her wrist, so that she can do her own flaps to improve her flying - because at the moment she flies without flaps.
On the Saturday, the 1st of October 2011, the girls went to an interaction section at the conference on how to bring many other girls to the industry since the young ones will soon be the leaders of Aviation.
The third day, the 2nd of October, the people from the conference all made a trip to our airfield where the AvTech girls come from, to see what they were doing . The whole group was shown around the field, some people received free trial flights, got to see some display work taking place and got a workshop session to demonstrate how the building of the planes are done by the girls. After all, the women present got free registration and the men all got 50% discount for their registration for flight lesson. In all, it was a successful event and big thanks goes to the organizers of the WAFRIC conference.
