Equity & Education Consultant, Marlena Henderson worked on building programs in the United States for nearly two decades and shared that she has yet to see a national STEM program rollout as effective or impressive as what STEMGuyana has achieved in less than three years. Last year she began studying the program in an effort to understand its foundational strength and remarkable success. Since then she has contributed her talents and resources to strengthen the program and hopes to help it expand to more under-represented communities throughout the Caribbean and United States. “These types of programs often target middle class communities, so it’s fascinating to learn that STEMGuyana clubs can be found in both rural and coastal regions across all socio-economic communities in Guyana”, stated Ms. Henderson. Her consultation will run for a three year period during which time, Henderson’s team will offer expertise in business development, funding, and scaling the STEMGuyana brand though-out Guyana and the Caribbean.
Ms. Henderson’s team will make a second trip to Guyana to tour STEM clubs and meet with STEMGuyana partners as soon as COVID-19 restrictions permit. Ms. Henderson attended Howard University and holds a degree in Business from the University of San Francisco and an MBA from Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. She worked extensively with schools and nonprofit supplemental school programs throughout the California Bay Area. California has more than 6,000,000 students enrolled in a total of 10,315 schools in1,181 school districts. “Our challenge in California, and indeed throughout the United States, has been figuring out how to efficiently and effectively scale STEM programs for a population of students who are under-represented in the STEM space and who, if no effective intervention happens, will not be adequately prepared to take advantage of employment opportunities in the future. STEMGuyana seems to have figured out how to do that well”, stated Henderson.She went on to state that, “what STEMGuyana is doing is nothing short of amazing. Although Guyana’s student population is significantly smaller than the student population in the US, it is comparable to some US states.
STEMGuyana grapples with infrastructure issues, Human Resources, mentor shortages, funding scarcity and the dispersal of young people in communities (many in interior regions) who should not be left out of the preparation for the technology future. Building a network across Guyana that reached these students, engaged them with relevant, exciting content, and raised funds to secure equipment, then trained an army of young “Dream Teams” to do outreach, training and club management is nothing short of miraculous.” The collaboration with Henderson means that her team will help STEMGuyana build capacity, track effectiveness of the program across Guyana, expand the program into the Caribbean and identify funding opportunities to ensure its long term success.
Co-founder of STEMGuyana, Karen Abrams stated that, “finding creative growth channels are essential to our mission. Today we have more than 70 teams across 8 regions of Guyana and more teams are coming on board regularly. We sent a national team to Dubai in October 2019, to represent Guyana in the Global Robotics Olympics. That team received the Albert Einstein first place “Gold Medal” for outstanding achievement. We’re planning to send junior teams to Korea in the future. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we built a crisis management platform that is accessible via mobile app to serve all sectors of the country. We continue to train leaders and expand programming nationally and we are doing this all on a shoestring budget. We now need additional funding to keep all of our programs alive.”Despite their success in communities across Guyana, raising funds is a constant challenge yet a crucial part of STEMGuyana’s sustainability.
Co-founder Abrams solicited help from Consultant Henderson’s team when she realised that Henderson immediately understood the difficult scope of the project and still wanted to come onboard to learn about the model for growth and to contribute to the success of the program. Today STEMGuyana’s representatives teach the robotics module under the First Lady’s national ICT program.
The organisation also has successful partnership agreements with the Department of Youth, the Ministry of Public Telecommunications and the National Library System. These partnerships provide access to a network of ICT hubs and libraries across Guyana and the youth resources of Department of Youth’s people nationwide. Additionally, Tullow Oil, GTT, the Ministry of Communities, & the Ministry of Education funded participation in the national robotics competitions in some or all of the years 2017, 2018 and 2019. This investment has helped develop the talent pool needed to open STEM clubs across the country.
STEMGuyana looks forward to further expansion of the STEM program into the interior of Guyana. The organization is currently seeking sponsorships and partnerships with companies and organizations that can provide volunteers, monetary grants, or other expertise that will help them to achieve their mission “to unleash the world class potential of Guyana’s youth”.
