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A KAMIT scholarship helped Abena Mensah, a Tarkwa student, take up her place to study Mechanical Engineering. She is now working towards a career in mining.
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- Community / beneficiary: Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality
- Impact metric: 1 full scholarship
Featured image: a photo of the scholar, ideally on campus or at a KAMIT site visit, in landscape format.
Story (main editor)
When Abena Mensah received her admission letter to study Mechanical Engineering, it was the proudest day of her family’s life, and also one of the most worrying. The daughter of a market trader in Tarkwa, she had worked hard through senior high school, often studying by torchlight after helping at her mother’s stall. Her results earned her the place, but the cost of fees, accommodation and books put it out of reach.
That year, KAMIT Services & Supplies launched a scholarship for young people from the communities around its operations, with a focus on encouraging more young women into engineering and technical careers. Abena’s application stood out for her grades and for her clear sense of purpose. “I’ve grown up watching the mines and the workshops around Tarkwa,” she wrote. “I want to be one of the people who designs and maintains the equipment, not just someone who watches it.”
The scholarship covers Abena’s tuition, accommodation and study materials for the length of her programme. Alongside the funding, KAMIT pairs each scholar with a mentor from its engineering team and offers practical attachment during the long vacation. In her first vacation, Abena spent six weeks with KAMIT’s fabrication and maintenance crews, learning workshop safety, reading drawings, and seeing how the theory from her lectures is applied on real jobs for mining clients.
“The money made it possible for me to go to school,” Abena says, “but the time on site is what made me believe I belong in this industry. The engineers treated me like part of the team, and they expected me to ask questions.”
Abena is now in her second year and among the top students in her class. She hopes to specialise in plant maintenance and one day return to the Western Region to work on the mines and industrial sites she grew up around. She also spends weekends tutoring junior high school girls in mathematics in her community, passing on the support she received.
For KAMIT, scholarships like Abena’s are part of a long-term commitment to the communities where it works. “Our business is built on skilled people,” says the company. “Investing in young engineers from Tarkwa and the surrounding communities is one of the most practical ways we can give back, and it is helping to build the workforce our region’s industries will need.”
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“The money made it possible for me to go to school, but the time on site is what made me believe I belong in this industry.” — Abena Mensah, KAMIT scholar