Seeing someone from an underprivileged background succeed despite all odds is truly inspiring for young people. Joe Phalwane knows what it’s like to build a successful career from nothing, then lose it all, and start all over again.
Phalwane is an aviator, entrepreneur, cabin safety officer, leadership speaker, trainer, and STEM education enthusiast. While working for an airline, he decided to pursue his childhood dream of flying airplanes. But having no formal education made the journey challenging for him.
He began his pilot training in his mid-thirties after refusing to be denied funding because of his age, true to Milton Erickson’s quote, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood”. He later started Aero Buddies, which uses flight simulators to teach kids maths and aviation. TransformSA caught up with Phalwane to learn more about his career path.
What was the inspiration behind forming Aero Buddies?
What inspired me to found Aero Buddies was to help kids that were battling with maths and science. As you may know, South Africa has a serious skills shortage in STEM fields, which are defined as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
When it comes to STEM education, why do you think it’s so important to get children involved at a young age?
Children who are introduced to STEM education at an early age have more opportunities by the time they reach high school. Imagine a situation where a child is unable to do homework or study effectively due to the presence of many people in a four-room house.
Or there’s no one in that household to help that child. So we realise that there’s a need to create what we call STEM ambassadors, these could be parents or just anyone who may want to get involved in this.
Do you focus on any particular kind of school?
Primary school is our main focus. Because if the child doesn’t have a proper foundation, they’re likely to believe maths and science are difficult. But we do work with high school kids, from time to time. Our target market is very defined, parents of children aged five to 15 years old. The second target market is parents of children from 15 to 18.
What makes your program different from mainstream education?
Except for our upcoming tutoring program, we don’t offer academic programs like in school. The GHQ academic program follows the national curriculum, but we also provide extra credit and tutoring services.