Quietly moving forward

Since we suspended our full time girls operations at AvTech, we have been busy working towards the

new Learning and Discovery Centre (planned to open in 2015). We don't get much time to blog, and are busy working to provide specific solutions to specific needs. As a part of our new strategy, we are working hand in hand with schools who believe in inspiration - and that the purpose of education is a step towards employment.

Last week we spoke at a local school where Patricia shared her story - and for some of the girls it was the first time they had seen or touched an electric drill!

As part of this speaking programme, Patricia delivers a modified version of the fun and interactive Stephen Taberner song (with his kind permission) re-titled 'Don't stand between a girl and her tools', accompanied by the Spanner and Screwdriver symbol with a 'female sign' embedded to the screwdriver (see back of Patricia's shirt). 

The words to the song are fun, and it is all about 'not allowing anything to stand in your way - because you never know when you might need it' - in other words -'decide what you want and go for it'. One thing is certain, and that is if anybody gets between Patricia and her tool set - they will wish they hadn't! Her passion and inspiration resulted in lots of questions and lots of inspiration.

We hope to soon have a YouTube video of the song to make you smile, and we hope to inspire you all!

Changing course...but not the destination

Patricia spends a great deal of time sharing her knowledge that has been gained over the past 7 years. Safety and appropriate personal protective equipment must be worn and used - even just one day exposure can change a persons whole approach to working with such tools. The skill set needed to successfully weld includes patience, precision, perseverance, outstanding hand-eye coordination and lots of attention to detail.

In the new year, AvTech will be shifting its focus away from full time courses and towards increasing exposure through short courses - to a wider range of candidates.

Patricia is planning some short (1 to 3 day) workshop exposure courses for teachers, lecturers and students from schools and universities around Ghana. Courses will cover welding, sheet metal working, milling, turning, how aircraft fly, how engines work as well as first aid and community health matters. We believe that linking STEM (science technology engineering and mathematics) with increased health education is key to stimulating positive change in the community.  

With Patricia as a role model in these courses we are sure that 2014 will be a year of great impact.

If you are interested in helping to fund - or to assist with - these short courses please contact capt.yaw@gmail.com

Circuits.. a shocking concept

It amazes me how few people understand electricity. Especially electricity in automotive and aviation
applications where the chassis or airframe is used as one side of the circuit.

To help stimulate greater understanding we built a quick steel base board and introduced the young ladies to the joys of building innovative switch and light circuits.

This will move to the museum next year for visiting school groups to learn more from those learning today.

In the eye of the beholder...

It is unbelievable how many people find it difficult to represents a simple drawing of any object

placed in front of them, therefore all the ladies today were asked to sketch the side view of our CH701.

For a lot them, this was a struggle. I then asked everyone to help draw it up on the white board together and realised how easy it became for all.

A lot more effort was then made to do more, the whole desire to make it a reality was very pleasing.

Learning by doing

This morning four of the apprentices are operating the plasma to produce 40 new fence posts.

All loading, unloading and button pushing including Gantry clearance moments are carried out by the girls in turn.

Learning to make things and to operate complex machinery is all part of the learning to work and take responsibility that Avtech is all about.

Of course the programming and mathematics of the machine will come later on in their training.

And then there was 10....

For the first we have taken a large number of apprentices, eleven young ladies into the academy at the same time.

We took a slightly larger number knowing that, not everyone of them would make it through to the end of the four year training successfully.

Today, one of the girls decided to go back and write remedial exams in order to go into nursing.

When we heard the news and knowing that this young lady is very able and is doing very well at the academy, we wanted to know more about the decision but she said she would rather put it in writing so, this is what she wrote;

Lydia heads to Germany

By the numbers....

We have quickly discovered that, the new ladies have lots of holes in their education and this week, we realised that, they lack the basics with numbers.

Today we went back to those basics like, place value and rounding of numbers.

These young ladies all use numbers everyday and yet have not realised how important it is to know to carry out even simple mathematical arithmetic without the use of calculators.

They have only been here just a little under three weeks and are beginning to gain the understanding of numbers. We are winning and moving forward sustainably.

Cogs in the machine.....

The girls are learning about cogs, pinions, gears and moving parts.   They have been learning through

dance and making things such as this demonstration cog plate.

Safety training..

This is the second week of term for the new ladies at the avtech academy. So the second week brought with it the need for safety training.

 

The day started with what would happen if someone stands in a maneuvering area of an aircraft whilst operation is going on.
Then the demonstration with water melon being hit by the wings of an aircraft to simulate what would happen if a human being should get hit by an aircraft.

 

Two 2*6 were strapped onto the back of our K2700 truck representing the wings of an aircraft. The Kia drove at 60km/hr, hit the melon which got minced up and the shock on the faces of the young ladies was spectacular.

 

Painting by the numbers

 Today the ladies all had the chance to learn about spraying from Lydia who is our best sprayer.

She took them through safety briefing and procedures concerning paint work. Lydia also taught them about the prep aspects and the fact that the actual spraying is a little part of it all but the preparation is the biggest and most important part of the spraying.

 

It is very essential that, these ladies understand the importance of learning to spray because in our part of the world, where everything rusts so quickly, there is the need to get them painted very early on before they rust and become difficult to work with.

 

 

RoboPat....

Monika and Petra are with Medicine on the Move and Avtech for the next few weeks. They are filming the preparation and surgery for Lydia who will soon be heading to Germany for hand surgery.

 Patricia could not resist trying out the camera rig that Petra usually has surgically attached to her body.

Hopefully we will be able to share some of the stories that our European volunteers are putting together, not only on Lydia but also following the progress of the new intake of young ladies from rural Ghana in training.

Simple, life saving navigation skills. Class two, put to the test.

The young ladies today were given a map and blindfolded then driven around to a location where they don't recognise the terrain.

They then had to navigate their way back to the airfield using the maps given to them. It was very interesting seeing how they all worked as a team and moved as one body being each other's watch to trek through the bush safely to the airfield.

Eventually, they used the features around them and used all sorts of techniques such as climbing trees, standing on rocks to see x, y or z in the. Mu distance. They then saw the airfield from afar and runned towards.

This is no different to navigating by plane to a particular place and towards the end of the navigation, the pilot sees an obvious feature in a distance and aims for that object.

In the afternoon, they were introduced to handling metal work such as sanding and prepping it for painting.

Listen and learn... communicate and stay safe... Simple, Critical skills

When a new batch of apprentices starts at the academy, it is very important to get them to respond to commands to assess their their ability to follow simple instructions.

Most of the repair work we do on the aeroplane is such that, when a person is holding a plane up for the undercarriage to be changed, they cannot just drop it when tired.

The ladies all went through the stress test to determine the point at which they need helped.

New Term ... New Faces... Getting ready

This weekend 12 new girls are scheduled to arrive on site for training.  A long overdue set of drying lines are currently being made - in house of course - to make washing days less stressful, and they look as if they may even be airworthy!

Gaining the skills to succeed

Part of the Avtech girls training includes learning to weld. Patricia is getting in some practice for term starting next week.

Problem solving...

The young ladies are now just beginning to do more work using the different tools for problem solving more and more in their daily given tasks. Young Lydia is getting more comfortable with the use of the small hand tools.

After a day's work, everyone goes to bed with satisfaction in what have been achieved in the day.

Sharpening and balancing sit and ride john-deere lawn mower blades in order to improve on the quality of cutting the grass at the airfield.

The right photo may change the world...

Since the next phase of our health outreach is to make some very innovative posters using photographs of people who are inspiration to the people in the rural Ghana. Photographs that puts across punchy messages to these communities about staying away from schistosomiasis.

The young ladies in the academy were very enthusiastic on how we should go about the whole concept. Some role models from the Afram plains were invited to the airfield to participate in the photo shooting session for the new posters for their communities.

Mowing between the rain drops...

We have been staying on top of mowing since we have been experiencing a lot of rain lately on the airfield.

The grass is able to change colour from brown to green overnight. When the rain is non-stop, it creates a lot of additional workload.

This workload enables the ladies to improve on their skills in the use of machinery; such as sit and ride mowers, lawnmowers, ,tractors, amongst others.

When cutting the airfield, we are ensuring that the cut lines are straight and keeping to specific pattern which makes sense, which does not cause distortion for pilots. This makes for an easier approach for all pilots and students learning to fly.

So tell me.... what makes you happy?

In the academy, students are interviewed once every month to find out what their views about the progress on the airfield.

This month's one on one interview was very interesting because each student mentioned that, the things which makes them happy about the school is;
Food
Shelter
Family environment
Safety

We then compared the subject most liked were; flying in the actual cockpit
Workshop (servicing the engines, names of tools, building the planes....)

They expressed that, they like learning by doing because they gain more experience.