The Springboard Teenpreneurship Experience — A Week of Turning Scrap Into Possibility.

The program brings together young people from across Ghana who are bright, curious teenagers between 13 and 17, and gives them hands-on skills to spark creativity and entrepreneurship. My role was simple: show them what's possible when you look at waste differently and introduce them to sculpting.

From the first day, you could feel the energy. Some of the students had never touched a tool before, others were eager to cut, bend, and weld, and all of them were ready to learn. What I loved most was the moment they realized, "Oh… scrap metal isn't just junk, it can become something." That shift in perspective is powerful.

Over three days of intensive training, we explored basic welding, finishing, using small power tools, safety etiquette, and the mindset behind making functional or artistic pieces out of discarded materials. It was about learning a technique and understanding that creativity can solve real problems: environmental ones, economic ones, and even personal ones.

The workshop was loud, messy, exciting, and full of aha-moments. I watched them go from being unsure about what to do with the available scrap metals to confidently assembling metal into forms they were proud of. You could see their confidence rise with each form and they kept changing forms to fit into their individual concepts.

On the final day, they presented their creations at a small showcase. That moment felt like a full circle seeing these young people, who only days before were strangers to the craft, speak boldly about what they made and why they made it.

Collaborating with Springboard reaffirmed something I deeply believe: when you empower young people with skills and imagination, they find independence and create magic. They build resilience. They start to see themselves as part of Ghana's growing creative economy and it boosts their experience in becoming.

It was more than a workshop; it was a reminder that the future of creativity in this country is exciting and it's already welding, shaping, building, and dreaming.