IEEE Pakistan WIE Forum Trip to Government Kindergarten School (GKS) Faisalabad

WIE members of Pakistan WIE Forum, and IEEE GCUF Student Branch visited Government Kindergarten School (GKS) Faisalabad, with the aim to motivate sense of responsibility, to enhance self-reliability and to increase the technical awareness among the young unacquainted female students. This event was supervised by Ms. Mehvish Zahoor, Chairperson IEEE Pakistan WIE Forum & Consultant IEEE WIE GCUF. With the support and permission of the respected principal of Government Kindergarten School, Madam Sumera Mehtab, a complete layout of all discrete activities to be conducted, was prepared by using Gtalk plugin. This event was coordinated by Madam Sobia, a staff member of GKS. More than sixty Computer Science, Mathematics & Biology female students of 9th & 10th standards were sitting in the class having seats arranged in elevated steps.

After the team introduction and greetings, Ms Saliha Kiran, Chairperson IEEE WIE GCUF, started the session’s first activity named as “Ice breaking activity”. The purpose of this activity was to make all the students familiar with one another. She asked two questions from each student i.e. their names & adjective from last alphabet of their names. It proved an interesting activity spanning thirty to thirty five minutes for all of them. This targeted not only to get familiar with the students but it was to give a keen and soft impression of us to them so that they could find us easy to talk to and be more interactive and responding towards us.

After this, Ms Nafeesa Mazhar, Vice-Chair IEEE WIE GCUF conducted the career counseling session for those young emblems of the future. The major highlights of Ms Nafeesa’s session were the necessary factors that are to be considered in field selection, confidence building & self-reliability. She started off by asking a few questions relating to the previous icebreaking session just to testify students’ attention. And then she continued with the most basic question of our survey, “What you want become in your future?” Students enthusiastically replied to our questions and the statistics were recorded as a result of the analysis. It became obvious that a major percentage of the students, i.e. 34% as we recorded, literally did not have the idea of what will they become on their future. Nafeesa interacted in a very ardent manner with those students who had said that they do not know what to do in future. They have set no vision of their academic era. She quoted journey of Albert Einstein’s & Isaac Newton’s failures in their student lives to their unforgettable achievements in Physics. Moreover, to emphasize the importance of teacher, she told them about Sir Winston’s Churchill story and his consistency mode of self-belief. She ended with Gazi Muhammad Abdullah example, a 15 years old child from Karachi city of Pakistan who has launched a project to eradicate pornography from Pakistan.

Miss Mehvish Zahoor conducted a special training session. Mehvish herself is an alumnus of the Government Kindergarten School, studied there nine years ago. Mehvish initiated by telling her story from her childhood to the reasons behind her today’s numerous international achievements. She told them how she introduced the Women In Engineering Affinity Group in her university and how she pain staked to achieve the “Best global WIE Affinity Group” award. Then, she took another big initiative for Pakistan’s female engineers by initiating “IEEE Pakistan Women in Engineering Forum” in 2010 with the aim to integrate all WIE affinity groups of Pakistan in one unit. Not only this, she was also selected as Pakistan delegate to go for IEEE R10 Student/GOLD/WIE Congress Auckland 2011. And then she said them today I’m standing in front of you as a trainer in the same classroom where I studied once and used to be an ordinary student like anyone else. She continued with some very important social and ethical issues like cleanliness, correct usage of electrical gadgets and technological awareness.

A “DREAM BALLOONS Activity” was conducted in which balloons of different colors were given in each row and then girls were asked to write down their dreams one by one followed by passing to next student within limited time. In parallel to the Dream Balloon activity, six to eight volunteers were called on for a sketching competition. They were provided with all the stationary stuff and they world told the sketching theme which was “Pakistan-a peaceful country”. A maximum of ten minutes were given for sketching out the best idea for how can Pakistan be represented as a peaceful country.

After this a sketching competition was terminated and evaluation was made by Pakistan WIE Forum representatives and the staff members. Then, we announced the results and Ms. Mehvish Zahoor distributed gifts to the winner, first and second runner ups.

Event is concluded by the recitation of the beloved National Anthem of Pakistan by all the students and a group photo. The young witty minds were filled in with a lot of knowledge and motivational thoughts. We received an amazing feedback which clearly reflected that the students loved this experience and insisted to come again to ignite their talent engine.