Patricia Mawuli Nyekodzi

Patricia Mawuli Nyekodzi (born in 1988) is the first female Ghanaian certified pilot, aircraft engineer, teacher and trainer and the only female qualified to build Rotax Aircraft Engines.[1][2]

Patricia Mawuli Nyekodzi
OccupationAircraft pilot 

Early life

Mawuli grew up in a mud shack in Mepe, a small rural village in the Volta Region of Ghana. She developed the love for flying after spending years watching planes passing overhead.[3]

At the age of 19, Mawuli went to look for employment at Kpong Airfield but was turned down by the airfield’s technical director, Jonathan Porter. He employed her to weed around the school and pull stumps from the runway, when she offered her services for free. Mawuli skilfully cut the trees, showing analytical ability to determine the most efficient means of extraction. Porter recognized the same skill when he asked her to help him with an airplane he was assembling. Mawuli's ability to quickly learn, master the skills and tools used to build an airplane, prompted Porter to give her a paid job as his apprentice and teach her to fly.[3][4][5]

Career

Mawuli became Ghana's first female civilian pilot in 2009. She is also the first black African to be certified to build Rotax Aircraft Engines, as well as the first woman in West Africa to be certified to build and maintain Rotax engines.[6]

Porter and Mawuli set up an aviation school, Aviation and Technology Academy Ghana, known as AvTech, in early 2010 where she trained four girls per year. The girls are trained to build and maintain ultralight aircraft, flight instructions, airfield operations, robotics engineering and computers. Putting her own salary into the school, she focuses on educating girls from rural backgrounds who might otherwise not have educational opportunities.[4][7]

Mawuli is currently an instructor at the Kpong Airfield where she teaches at AvTech.[3] In 2013 she was appointed as the Managing Director of Operations for Kpong Airfield.[5] Mawuli pilots as a volunteer with Medicine on the Move, an organization 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. She occasionally drops educational pamphlets over remote villages.[3]

References
  1. "Patricia Mawuli Nyekodzi - Ghana's first female pilot". www.ghanaweb.com. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  2. "In pictures: Ghana's flying women". BBC News. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  3. "Faces of Africa 20120604 Female pilot". Beijing, China: China Central Television. pp. 1–6. Archived from the original on 20 April 2016. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  4. Petitt, Karlene (December 2011). "She Walked out of the African bush and discovered the Sky" (PDF). 99 News. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Ninety-Nines: International Organization of Women Pilots. 38 (4): 8–9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 December 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  5. Porter, Jonathan (August 2015). "A Ghanaian Woman's Quest to Work---and Fly". Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Enterprises. Air & Space/Smithsonian. Retrieved 19 December 2016. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. Carrington, Daisy; Goulding, Nicola (8 October 2014). "Women with wings: Female pilots making history". Atlanta, Georgia: CNN. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  7. Shryock, Ricci (May 14, 2012). "Ghana's Female Pilots Are Ready for Takeoff". Washington, D.C.: Voice of America. Archived from the original on 19 December 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2016.


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