WSIS Forum 2023: KIDsVAI Train-the-trainers session to break gender stereotypes in STEM

Since over five years, our Swiss partner Swiss Engineering Geneva has experienced a few workshops in classrooms at primary schools in Geneva, targeting young girls and boys aged 10-12 years. The objective is to raise awareness on gender stereotypes in STEM* careers (Science Technology Engineering Maths) in a session of a maximum of two sessions:
(1) First of all, we help deconstruct gender stereotypes linked to technical professions: we, women, explain what we do as an engineer, a technician in our daily job, and thus we push the role models forward as we are under the spotlight;
(2) The second part of the workshop is devoted to an exercise in electrical circuit assembly, bringing the kids to work in a team of 4 mixed people, each one having a role with simple technical instructions.
So far, nearly 2’000 young students in Geneva were reached thanks to our partnership where WOMENVAI brings in the method and the technical elements of the technical game.

We have also experienced the same exercise, but focused on girls only, in Mauritania (2021) and Benin (2022) where more than 100 girls attended our KIDsVAI workshop, with the support of the local education authorities and our ambassadors.