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Tamale, Ghana – One of the highest points of the “Girls in ICT Project” Boot Camps by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation and MTN Ghana is always the mentorship session.
The mentorship session, a one-day event, usually brings together experienced and accomplished women to share life experiences to inspire basic school girls to challenge themselves for success.
Following the successful end of the Girls in ICT Boot Camp held simultaneously over a number of days throughout last week across different centres in all 16 local assemblies in the Northern Region, all one thousand (1,000) primary and junior high school girls who participated, converged at the University for Development Studies on Monday for some life coaching.
At the multipurpose auditorium of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Dungu campus, various speakers and coaches including Mariam Abubakari and Vivian Apode, both of MTN Ghana spoke words of power and inspiration to the girls.
Mrs. Abubakari who is a Branch Controller of the Tishigu Branch of MTN Ghana, spoke to the girls about career planning, and urged them to decide on their career paths now and work hard towards achieving them.
According to her, her mum though was not educated, played a key role in helping her as a child to decide on what she wanted to become in future, and today, she was proud her dream had come true.
On her part, Ms. Vivian Apode who is also a Teller at MTN Tishigu Branch in Tamale educated the girls on how to attain quality sleep, failure to do so could impact negatively on their academic prospects and health.
She admonished the girls against the use of tiktok and other social media apps for long hours which could make them addictive and loose quality sleep time.
Other speakers also took the girls through personal etiquette, the importance of information, communication and technology and its related fields of study among others.
Accompanying the 1,000 girls were their teachers, directors of education and chief executives of the various local assemblies. Also present at the event were the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Alhassan Shani Shaibu, the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation Mrs. Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, Vice Chancellor of the UDS Prof. Seidu Al-hassan, Northern Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service Hajia Katumi Natogmah Atta as well as officials from MTN Ghana.
The “Girls in ICT Project” is an initiative that seeks among others to teach young girls across the country some basic ICT skills so as to adequately prepare them for future career choices.
It is also part of the government’s strategies to ensure that Ghana achieved the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 5.
The project is being implemented through the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC), an agency of the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation.
The girls were selected from schools in the Mion District, Karaga District, Tolon District, Kumbungu District, Savelugu Municipal, Tamale Metro, Nanton District, Sagnarigu Municipal, and Kpandai District.
Others came from schools in the Tatali District, Gushegu District, Nanumba South, Nanumba North, Yendi Municipal, Saboaba District, and Zabzugu District.
The girls were introduced to ICT programmmes such as coding, software development, cyber security, web design and data analysis among others at various training centres in Tamale and the other districts’ capitals.
All the girls are to be awarded with certificates of participation whereas the best girl in each district gets ICT lab set up in the schools they attend.
Also, the top 100 girls would each be given brand new laptops and the top three (3) girls would be awarded cash prizes and plaques.
In June, a total of 1,000 primary and junior high school girls were selected from seven districts in the Savannah Region and trained in the aforementioned computer programmes.
The “Girls in ICT Project” is also supported by the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence, ATC, German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and KODRIS Africa.
By SavannahNewsOnline.Com/Joseph Ziem
