Peter Berg introduced Dr Ruwangi Fernando the Founder & Director of STEM Sisters a highly acclaimed Not-for Profit community whom Rotary Melbourne through the Welfare of the Young Committee is partnering with on an educational printed comic book project called The Future Me. This is an edited version of Ruwangi’s and Peter’s remarks.
Ruwangi is a highly regarded inspirational leader of STEM Sisters whose mission is to empower culturally and racially marginalised Women of Colour into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) professions. Most are migrant women but also are from Indigenous communities and second generation migrant families as well.
Many of these women have not been getting employment opportunities within their STEM sector. STEM Sister's purpose is to get to work on this particular niche segment. With a large community of Women of Colour, STEM Sisters became very popular quickly and now is a national movement.
Some of the initiatives are limited to Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia but some are national like the Women of Colour in STEM Awards. STEM Sisters is now catering for nearly 10,000 women across Australia with different types of initiatives including Mentoring and Ambassador programs along with programs for children.
STEM Sisters is supporting the next generation, 50% whom are born overseas - programs have been created for young children with an emphasis on girls – The Future Me. Again, it’s a broad initiative that includes a STEM career book series and holding events such as Soapbox Science during National Science Week and STEM workshops such as Santa’s Lab and Halloween Lab which are thematic programs to bring science along with its experiments to children.
The Future Me comic book series featuring multiple career titles is currently in a digital version. It is focused on enlightening young children on a STEM career because later in life they are often asked to study medicine and science without having a complete understanding on diverse STEM careers. The books focus on diversity with the names and the characters in the books being diverse.
The Future Me STEM Sisters partnership project with Rotary Melbourne introduces STEM professions at an early age to young children (ages 3 to 10) from all cultures and ethnicities living in Victorian regional, rural and remote communities, giving them access to a series of fun and very relatable printed comic books. The focus is especially on youngsters living in the poorer socio-economic towns and communities who are not likely to have a computer or access to the internet which prevents them from viewing the current digital version.
In a steady project rollout we will be seeking the assistance of Rotary Clubs around regional, rural and remote Victoria to reach out to youngsters engaging with their schools and early learning centres in the distribution of the books that perhaps can involve Rotarians in supervised reading sessions.
