The Executive Director, Bloom Innovation, Mrs Hannah Kabrang, in this exclusive interview with Inclusive News Network (INN) correspondent, Yusuf Mohammed Lawan, spoke on how her organization is creating space for young girls including girls with disabilities in northern Nigeria to rub shoulders with their male counterparts in the areas of mathematics education in order to improve their knowledge of science and technology in this digital age, she also bares her mind of challenges faced by Bloom Innovations, inclusive education among other sundry issues. Excerpts;
Describe your organization briefly.
Bloom Innovations is a Nigerian StartUp that has the Passion for STEM( SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS) and it’s education.
Built for young people especially girls in northern Nigeria Bloom Innovations has successfully created, Bloom Mathematics Challenge for girls, Bloom coding clinic, STEM clubs and it’s striving web and software development solutions over the last 4 years. It hopes to be a tech hub of repute in northern Nigeria in the coming years.
What’s the motive of organizing the mathematics competition, or what do you actually intend to achieve by organizing such event?
Bloom Mathematics Challenge running for the fourth year now was created out of the discovery of Mathematics phobia among young girls there by hindering them to pursue STEM careers leading to a significant gap with their male counterparts in the work place. So we intend to recognize, reward and help mentor those that are doing good while encouraging others to learn and understand the place of Mathematics in STEM.
Any challenges faced? If any, how were you able to cope with the challenges?
Yes, there are challenges, first with schools, it’s administrators need to understand the importance of registering their wards for such events then second with partnership with organizations or individuals to make events like this more robust and impactful. For the challenge with school administrators we decided to work with the few that understand our vision while we continue becoming creative towards our approach to the event and towards these school administrators and indeed we have seen some sort of results progressively from 10 participants to almost 100 in the just concluded event. Especially from the special school students.
For partnership, we have used consistency as a tool to draw partners leading to some partnership here and there with one very consistent so far, we have not gotten there yet we only hope that this interview will attract one or two towards a better one next year.
The invitation of special students to participate at the event is highly commendable. Can you say few things about inclusive education?
Indeed! we are grateful to the Almighty for granting us the insight to involve a special set of individuals neglected by our society in many aspects of life. Inclusive education is education that permits individuals with special needs to learn alongside their contemporaries in dignity, showcasing their uniqueness in creativity, talents portrayal in good and qualitative educational environments with flexibility and adaptability of their changing needs. And alas! inclusive education is why we invited the people with special needs however difficult it might be with their special and changing needs.
Investigation carried out by the Inclusive News Network reveals that Bloom Innovations, also known as Bloom4STEM, is a social enterprise born from a vision to champion and empower young individuals, with a special focus on girls from the North Eastern region of Nigeria. Its mission is to ensure equitable representation and recognition of young girls including girls with special needs in the dynamic fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)
INN reports that the hotly contested mathematics competition which hold at the main hall of National Library was sponsored by a philanthropist identified as Mr. Paul Kneebone, whose contributions to the successful conduction of the 2024 Bloom Innovations Mathematics Competition can not be quantified. These are schools that won trophies during the competition: Kingdom Breeds School won the first position in the primary category, followed by Kids Window school and Royal Grace Land both second and third positions respectively.
In the Junior Secondary School category, first position was won by Linkhon Stem High School, the second and third positions were sweeped by Kingdom Breeds School and Royal Grace Land. The Senior secondary school section of the competition produced Baptist Academy as the first position winner, followed by GDSS Shongo Idrisa, second position and GDSS Science 2 as the third winner.
The Special Education Centre, Gombe being the only representative of Students with Disabilities (SWDs) in the competition secured fifth slot in the list of schools performance in the competition.