The Country Director of
Science Ambassadors Foundation (SAF), Mrs Nnabugwe Hope, lamented that people
do not see science as a lucrative business in Nigeria, thereby affecting
awareness and programmes the foundation has planned to promote science
Mrs Hope, who is also a
researcher at National Centre for Energy Efficiency and Conversation, said
“When you go out to seek for partnership, or funding it looks like why science,
why not fashion, why not football and it beats my imagination to imagine that
knowledgeable individual knows that science and technology is the bed rock of
national development and then you see a STEM movement and you are saying why
not fashion, why not football.”
She added the problem
prompt volunteers of SAF to come up with a project tagged ‘Street Storm’ to
create more awareness and seek sponsorship for various projects the Foundation
wants to undergo.
On how to integrate the
SAF project to achieve success, she mentioned that “Science Ambassadors
Foundation has a youth community that has started this movement, we are going
to start with a Street Storm during the Matriculation and we also have a major
event on the 25th of May where we intend to set a world record where
we create science in a fun way for both teachers and students and the general
public. Where you can come to learn the importance and applications of science
(hand-on science) not just theoretical science and not necessarily with
laboratory wares.
“You see us teaching
with household equipments, with things that you can pick up on the road for us
until you are able to communicate what you have learnt to your grandparents or
children or parent in the most pragmatic way that’s when we can say that this
information has been converted to knowledge in you.
“So we use the most
persuasive means, so we use the most informative means, the most fun way to
communicate our programme, and learning activities to the audience. We have a
radio programme every Saturday where we engage our audience with fun ways of
learning sciences and the products that are coming out.”
To help build
innovators and scientists in Nigeria, she said SAF has initiated an “enterprise
hub where our brand ambassadors are come with their innovative ideas and we
look at how to fund viable products and we push it out to the market”.
In addition to this, the Teachers’ platform of
SAF, where partners of the foundation who happen to comprise of Science and Engineering
Faculties lecturers, provide training for teachers and also mentoring other
people.
More so, she requested
the Ministry of Education to champion the course by reviewing the policies and
should stop making other sciences an alternative to medical sciences.
She illustrated the
reason for her point by saying “Practical is practical, practical means it is
handsome, there cannot be an alternative to practical. You are either driving
or you are not driving, so somebody cannot come to you and say alternative to
driving is for you to sit down and imagine that you are driving. They can
review the policies, they can review the curriculum especially the practical
aspect of science education, they can also champion some of this project that
the foundation has put together because we have written to them for principal
partnership and we are hopeful that we can all work together.”
Science Ambassadors
Foundation is advocacy organisation for Science Technology Engineering
Mathematics (STEM) in Nigeria and they are proposing to break the Guinness Book
of Record in early this year which will also be the 50 years celebration of
Lagos State. The record breaking event will see 5000 students across secondary
schools in Lagos gather for science innovating experiment and talks.
