CIHT has been working with The Fest Hub, Ramboll, West Ham football club, Palmers Catholic Academy and some of CIHT's amazing STEM ambassadors, on an innovative programme that uses links to football to raise awareness of STEM careers.
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CIHT's STEM ambassadors are supporting The Fest Hub programme, which provides support for young people particularly from disadvantaged communities to transition into the wider world of work and get into STEM based careers.
The Fest Hub connects Football, Education & STEM through activities which include running bridge building activities, workshops, helping with site visits, football stadium tours and supporting and judging a student design challenge.
The volunteer CIHT STEM ambassadors supporting the most recent event were: Leora Wilson, Global Practice and Early Career Professional Lead for Transport Planning for Mott MacDonald and; Shakira Bickhan, Pilot Officer with the Royal Air Force Air Cadets and Apprentice Transport Planner for Mott MacDonald.
Leora and Shakira can be seen pictured right, alongside the founder of the Fest Hub, Emmanuel Afolabi, Civil Engineer at Ramboll, and a representative from West Ham Football club.
This week, our ambassadors were supporting an activity called 'Stadium Seller'. Students worked in groups to identify and understand which features of a stadium make it iconic, learn a bit about how it was built, identify its unique selling points and develop an elevator pitch to sell that stadium to the audience in the most engaging way possible.
These sessions are designed to improve the employable soft skills of the students. The stadium seller activity helped them to learn the skills of teamwork, problem solving, communication, presentation skills, leadership and time-management.
The picture to the right shows the students learning about new stadium designs.
We asked STEM ambassador Shakira Bickhan what it was like to volunteer for the Fest Hub activities, Shakira says:
“Being a Fest Hub volunteer has been a fantastic opportunity to be part of an inspiring scheme that introduces students to the vast options within the world of engineering (like transport planning!). I found the link to football (like the recent session exploring stadium designs) as a motivating incentive for the students to immerse themselves and engage in the sessions, which makes it definitely worthwhile and rewarding as supporting volunteers.”
We asked STEM ambassador Leora Wilson how it was for her to give back to the community, Leora says:
For me it was fantastic way to share my knowledge of the industry with the next generation and to hear their ideas about how stadiums can be developed and operate sustainably in the future. In addition, all the students found my journey and pathway into the industry particularly inspiring and I have achieved all I have through an apprenticeship!
Volunteering opportunities are now available to support more Fest Hub events and activities. If you are a STEM ambassador or would like to be one to support these activities, any support you can offer will be most welcome.
If you would like to support the program or find out more about how you can inspire the next generation through football, please contact us to register your interest at professionaldevelopment@ciht.org.uk
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