On Saturday the 19th of February 2022, roughly 20 facilitators set out to impact design thinking skills on students of the Mampong school for the deaf and the blind. The event which took place in the dining hall, commenced at 11:30am and was a Design Thinking Empowerment Session, in partnership with the Leo Club and Sign Language Club. It is the second in a series of three empowerment sessions for the physically challenged.
Petra Abosi from the Sign Language Club made the opening prayer and explained the agenda of the session to the students. Mr. Divine whose role for the day was assisting with the sign demonstration to the students, was kind enough to help the students understand the agenda.
The meeting was kicked off with an icebreaker led by Anne Boakye-Yiadom and Anita Boakye-Yiadom. The ice breaker involved an interesting game called letter game. The students were to pick an alphabet and state what country, which animal, name of a boy or girl that starts with that one alphabet. For example; For letter A, we have the country Angola, an animal called Antelope, a boy's name Anthony and Anne as the name for a girl. The students were divided according to their gender girls and boys, and competed against one another.
The keynote speaker of the day Mr. Derrick Omare then made his way to the center stage to deliver his speech after an wonderful introduction about him by Petra Abosi. Petra Abosi also signed for Mr. Derrick to help students understand him better. Mr. Derrick Omare is the head of a technical company called Tech Era. Before he started his speech, he divided the students into various groups that were determined by the day they were born from Monday to Sunday.
Mr. Derrick then asked each of them to state what they would all like to become. The facilitators assigned to each team took down the students' aspirations. He then began explaining his journey towards success. He mentioned how he came from a humble background and his father was a trotro driver. They did not have much to survive on. -However, he said that all those challenges never prevented him from achieving his goals. He was able to get to Senior High School and later on to Ashesi University. He later on proceeded to Cambridge University to pursue his Masters Degree.
He was also able to engage and be in different programs in the United States. He has also travelled to different countries. He encouraged the students to believe in themselves in order to become who they want to be. He said that they should not feel limited to their aspirations just because they are deaf. He also encouraged them to defy those odd and not listen to those who tell them that they can not succeed. His key quote was, " Anything that you put your mind and heart into will become possible."
He mentioned how he wanted to do business and did not let his humble background get in his way. " Do not think about your challenges, the next thing to do after believing is to have a plan." He emphasized on the importance of knowing the road or path that leads to your final destination. " Be serious with your education. It does not matter whether you are blind as long as you are serious with your goals."
The next step he mentioned as a path to success was to be disciplined. He posed the question to the students and asked them to define their understanding of discipline. Albert, a student from the school, was able to answer correctly and Mr. Derrick gladly requested to become his mentor. He encouraged students to always grab opportunities as they never come by easily.
He also encouraged the students to identify their talents and work on them. He gave an example of Asamoah Gyan, and other famous footballers in Ghana who identified their talents as footballers and became successful. He also encouraged the students to become adverse with the current technology as another step towards success. He mentioned how the world is currently evolving technologically and that it does not matter whatever disability you have. He encouraged them to learn English and be able to type and communicate with others.
He wrapped up his speech with the following words, " It is important to pray and commit yourself to God. Without God we cannot become who we want to be." He acknowledged other religions as well, and encouraged them to always pray and believe.
DESIGN THINKING SESSION
The last session of the day was the design thinking session led by Anita Boakye-Yiadom and Anne Boakye-Yiadom. The session which first commenced in the Dining Hall, was concluded in their classrooms in order to allow other students have their lunch. The students were divided into teams of eight. Mrs. Priscilla assisted with the signing as Anita explained more on the Design thinking process. Two facilitators were assigned to each team. Due to lack of people to help signing in each team, facilitators communicated with the students through writing.
The key concepts for the day were the building blocks of design thinking which are as follows: Empathize. Define, Ideate, Prototype. Students were taken through the first three steps, in belief that the ideas developed will be revisited and prototyped in the near future.
The design Lab provided a list of problems areas which include; War, Hunger, Poverty, Education, Health, Pollution, Technology, just to mention but a few. Students were asked to focus on one of these problem areas, and empathize with the people experiencing problems in this area. They were then provided with ideation tools such as tree diagrams, cardboard, paper, pens, sticky notes, to define and ideate on a narrowed down problem. Using these tools, they mapped possible root causes, effects, stakeholders, and solutions were developed.
The final phase of the program was continued in one of the classrooms. The students enjoyed refreshments, wrapped up their idea boards, and prepared for presentations. The students took pictures with their presentations along side their respective facilitators. Solutions ranged from creating NGO's for fees to enhance educational attainment, laying out a new teaching plan to enhance good education to students, building affordable public toilet and washing facilities to curb water pollution and clean ups of stagnant water to curb the spread of malaria.
Nicole's team won the final presentation and took home prizes such as t-shirts and exercise books. Other students who had actively participated and answered questions were presented prizes, and stood for pictures with Mrs. Priscilla.
The winners of the design thinking session then took pictures with some of the facilitators . All the students were also awarded certificate of participation as an award for their wonderful cooperation during the session.
To conclude the event for the day, there was a farewell dance session and a photograph session between the students and the guests. The event ended at 3pm.
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