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Damongo, Ghana – Adwoa Baah-Obeng, a Senior Manager at MTN Ghana in-charge of Customer Retail Experience, has urged young girls in school to take advantage of the country’s ICT Hub to acquire relevant information, communication and technology skills when it is inaugurated.
She said the acquisition of ICT skills would empower many young people including girls to create solutions and innovations that would transform Ghana’s ICT agenda at all levels of development.
‘MTN in partnership with the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization in March this year cut sod for the construction of a US$25 million ICT Hub in Accra. When completed, it will provide an avenue to sustain the development of Ghana’s ICT aspirations.’
Ms. Baah-Obeng said these when he joined the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization on Tuesday to close a four-day Girls in ICT Mentorship Kickoff program at Damongo in the Savannah Region.
The mentorship kickoff program was organized as part of the implementation of the Girls in ICT Project by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization in five selected regions across the country.
The ongoing project seeks among others, to teach young girls across the country some basic ICT skills so as to prepare them for future career choices. It is also part of the government’s strategies to ensure that Ghana achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 5.
A total of 1000 primary and junior high school girls selected from seven districts in the Savannah Region were introduced to ICT programmmes such as coding, software development, cyber security and data analysis during the four-day camping in Damongo.
Prizes
An eleven year old basic six pupil of the T.I. Ahmadiya Islamic School at Kpalbusi in the North East Gonja District, Mohammed Rahimmah beat 999 girls in the mentorship programme, scoring 92 out of 100 in an assessment test.
Out of the 1000 girls, 100 of them whose performances were rated higher than their colleagues in the test conducted were awarded with certificates of participation. They were also given brand new laptop computers.
Those who attained third, second and first positions were also rewarded Gh¢2,000, Gh¢2,500 and Gh¢3,000 respectively.
On behalf of her colleagues, Miss Rahimmah thanked the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization for the initiative. She described the experience as a life changing one for herself and her colleagues saying “some of them have never touched a computer in their life until the arrival of the Girls-In-ICT program by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalization.”
Communications Minister
Minister for Communications and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful in her closing remarks “said she was optimistic that the program will leave its mark in the hearts and minds of the people of the Savannah Region.”
She explained that, she saw the beneficiary girls as people being groomed to be handed over the baton to drive the development of the country because government was building a digital Ghana which needed its own people to manage the infrastructure, applications and services that were being put in place.
Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful also noted that in the world that was emerging, digital tools had taken on a crucial role and young girls could not be left behind as the country gradually moved from a manual to a digital economy which was a deliberate policy the government had taken, knowing how important digitalization was to the development of every economy.
The Girls In ICT Project by the Ministry of Communication and Digitalization is being implemented through the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC) with support from MTN Ghana, KACE, ATC, GIZ and KODRIS Africa.
By SavannahNewsOnline.Com/Kusiele Ziem & Gideon Kumatey
