STEMGuyana, which celebrates five years since being established by a US-based Guyanese family, has made a tremendous contribution to youth through its technology education programme, inclusive of robotics, coding and aiding their development in soft skills.
Karen Abrams, her husband Leon Christian and their children Ima, Asha, Caleb and Joshua co-founded the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programme in Guyana, purchasing equipment and robot kits with funding from Guyanese in the Diaspora that allowed for camps at Buxton, Lusignan, St Rose’s High and Queen’s College. Among the sponsors was the Office of the then First Lady Sandra Granger who invited the family and made arrangements for accommodation.
According to a press release, “STEMGuyana’s stated mission, ‘to unleash the world class talent of Guyanese students’ is manifest each year as the organisation leads junior and senior robotics teams to credible performances in global robotics challenges which often include talent from nearly every country in the world.” But the STEMGuyana programme is about much more than annual robotics competitions as Abrams pointed out that it has prepared many young people going off in search of careers by strengthening their problem solving, collaboration, communication and conflict resolution skills.
Through the programme more than 200 STEM club leaders were trained, more than 75 STEM clubs were launched in eight regions before COVID, as well as 20 learning pods with a technology-integrated Ministry of Education curriculum for English, Mathematics and Science for which more than 1,300 lessons were developed. STEMGuyana also took on the responsibility of creating the “Robin The Robot” TV show in partnership with the Guyana Learning Channel to distribute the STEM education programming to children in all ten administrative regions.
As it celebrates its fifth anniversary, it is also celebrating a STEMGuyana coach and former robotics team member as he joins an international company in an offshore job as a junior underwater surveyor.
In a comment, co-founder Asha Christian said, “STEMGuyana’s success is truly a reflection of the value parents and children have received from our many programs and classes”.
Co-founder and recent Stanford University graduate Ima Christian added, “…our mission is to identify, inspire and engage talent wherever we find it and talent exists at every socioeconomic level in Guyana. Additionally, programmes like STEMGuyana are the reason why our co-founder and sibling team were able to attend some really good learning institutions in the United States. And we intend to share everything we have learned to help improve the lives of youth here in Guyana”.
The STEMGuyana co-founders attended Stanford, Cornell and New York University, and this fall, the youngest, Leon Joshua, who has been tutoring for the past 3 years in STEMGuyana’s youth technology programme, will be heading off to Boston University on a track scholarship.
Though it is still operating out of a modest room at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall, STEMGuyana has now emerged as a national institution. With help coming from public and private partners the focus will be on building a STEMGuyana lab and training centre on land that has already been allocated to the organization by Go-Invest and the Central Housing & Planning Authority.
“The new lab will enable many of Guyana’s young members to build commercially viable robotics and technology solutions which will benefit Guyana, will allow the organization to train hundreds more club leaders to help reach the target of 1,000 STEM clubs across Guyana by 2025…” the release said. The team is also looking to work with school dropouts so that they too can add value to the development of Guyana particularly in the agriculture sector.
“STEMGuyana leaders are guided by the values—collaboration, respect, inclusion, gratitude and optimism. That is who we are and those values are the foundation for this very challenging mission we have accepted. We are also making 5,10, 15-year investments in the lives of Guyana’s youth and we strongly believe in this mission,” Abrams said.
