As the Next Einstein Forum Ambassador in Ghana, Justina is active in raising awareness about STEM and its associated career opportunities. She challenges young girls to take advantage of STEM by inspiring them with the success stories of some women scientists.

It all began in 2004 when Justina would engage young girls in her church on school-related issues. With time, her small informal meetings had evolved into real support and advice sessions for the young girls.

Justina provides career counselling as part of her mentoring activities. Through this, some young girls who had left school, and for many years were unsure of what to do next, have been able to find their careers of interest.

“I came from a hopeless background and so it is time to give hope to people from backgrounds like mine because it is possible to be great if you work hard at it and tap into the grace of God”, Justina disclosed.

The last STEM week was organized in May 2022. At the event, many girls developed an interest in STEM compared to the previous weeks. “We had about 65 high school girls who had no idea of the practical aspects of science. All they knew was what they were taught in school. We did a robotics workshop. At the beginning of the session, only 15 out of 65 wanted to study science. But in the end, 80% of them wanted to go into STEM,” Justina recounted.

According to Justina, she never dreamt of going into STEM in the initial stages. She had a misconception that sciences were difficult, and strived to pursue arts. However, she gave up and ended up studying agriculture science which had Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and General Agriculture as majors.

But today, Justina says she has no regrets. She is devoted to helping young girls to deconstruct the misconceptions about Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) using her personal experience as an example. “… when I got into science, I realized it was not a ‘demon’ as we have been made to believe. Actually, nothing in this world is easy, it only becomes easy because you dedicate yourself to it”, she noted.

Justina Onumah obtained a degree in agricultural technology with a major in economics in 2008. She continued to the University of Ghana for a master’s degree in agricultural economics in 2009. In 2012, she worked as a Research Scientist at the Science & Technology Policy Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Ghana.

She completed a Ph.D. in Development Studies at the University of Ghana in collaboration with the University of Bonn in Germany in 2020.

Justina Onumah seeks to launch a mentoring platform to reach out to more young girls in Ghana and Africa.

REFERENCE

Information from www.africawomenexperts.com was used in this story.