Priscilla Otumfuor Mustapha, 21, is a Level 200 Higher National Diploma Automobile Engineering student at Ho Technical University (HTU), with big dreams.

“I have plans to start moulding my own brand of vehicles in six years,” she told The Spectator in a chat at the campus recently.

This was after the HTU-Japan Motors Trading Company Vehicle Service Centre was commissioned on campus.

According to Priscilla, her father who deals in heavy duty trucks and trailers made a positive influence on her.

“I have always loved cars from my childhood and wanted to know more about cars and so I often spent time drawing cars and carriages,” she said.

She intimated that Ghana needed more women in the area of engineering and said she would convince as many girls as possible to venture in to such area.

Priscilla noted that “when boys go into catering at school no one makes fun of them, but when girls go into engineering everybody sees them as though they had made awkward choices.”

However, she said that the negative comments from some people, including some of her course mates, such as “boy girl” and “man woman” do not deter her, stressing “I want to make a difference and prove the skeptics wrong,:

The pretty young woman who speaks English, French and Twi, said that she loved playing football, singing and dancing in addition to drawing.

A member of the International Central Gospel Church, Rhema Temple at Medie in Accra, Priscilla said that she already had the models of the cars and heavy-duty vehicles she would come out with in the future.

Spectator: tell me more about them.

Priscilla: For now, that is my industrial secret.

Spectator: What massage do you have for the younger ladies outside there?

Priscilla: They must study diligently towards a bright future. They must remain focused on their career dreams.  Women are serving as Generals in the army, women are flying aircraft, women are playing football, so women can design and mould their own cars and do whatever men can do.

From Alberto Mario Noretti, Ho