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We are always happy to showcase individuals making impact within Africa and beyond, today we celebrate 31-year-old Ghanaian aircraft mechanic and only female flight instructor in West Africa, Patricia Mawuli-Porter who broke gender barriers by rising from clearing tree trunks for free to becoming the director of an academy called AV-Tech that provides young Ghanaian girls with the skills, training and inspiration to become pilots.
Patricia’s impactful journey started about eleven years ago, when she went to seek for a job at the Kpong Aireld in Eastern Region of Ghana but little did she know that she will be the country’s first female civilian pilot in two years after and now the only West Africa’s first woman certified to build and maintain Rotax aircraft engines
With persistence and determination, Patricia Mawuli- Porter attained this great milestone when she knocked on the doors of the technical director of the Kpong Aireld, Jonathan Porter,who later became her husband and taught her all that she knows about aviation.
Her words to CNN in an interview was , “I said: ‘I will do whatever it takes, I’ll work hard, you don’t have to pay me.’ They told me: ‘Don’t worry. You are so different. You’ve got energy, you have potential. We will do whatever it takes.’ This is when my whole flying career just started to boom,”
Patricia didn’t just making this impact within Ghana, she also teaches girls in the United States how to build aircrafts. She was invited to the Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture fly-in in Oshkosh, Wisconsin twice and on one occasion; she helped the young team of young Americans with no prior aircraft building experience to assemble a Zenith CH750 aircraft in a record one week.
“There are a lot of young people (who), when they see me, (are given) hope. It motivates them to learn harder because they believe women actually have something ahead of them,” she said.
This amazing game changer is the co-founder of Medicine On The Move, (MoM), a local NGO that works together with the Aviation Academy to transport doctors, deliver medical supplies and services, as well as health education to rural communities across the length and breadth of Ghana.
We find her story inspiring hence our reason for sharing with you, as you read this we want you to understand that your great dreams can come to pass as far as you’re focus and determined.
Keep Going Patricia Mawuli-Porter We Celebrate You
Source: HowAfrica
