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Tamale, Ghana – Christiana Wehle Awiah, a form two pupil of St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Junior High School in the Tamale Metropolis in the Northern Region, emerged winner of the Northern Region Girls in ICT competition on Monday.
For her prize, the 14 year old received a certificate, plaque, laptop and Gh¢3,000.00 cash. Additionally, her school would also get brand new ICT lab set up.
Christiana won the competition following a weeklong boot camp and mentorship session organized by the Ministry Communications and Digitalisation with funding support from telecom and technology company MTN Ghana.
The boot camp was organized simultaneously at different locations in all 16 local assemblies in the Northern Region. One thousand primary and junior high school girls were selected from different schools to attend.
According to Christiana, though she knew how to play around computers, her first time of actually learning anything like coding, website design and animations was at the boot camp.
“This is my first time of learning how to code. How wonderful I felt knowing I can instruct the computer to create games, animation stories, and websites. Before last week, my desire was to be a lecturer in human languages but with this exposure, I intend to explore the possibility of lecturing in computer languages. Girls-in-ICT has really aligned with my aspirations”, she said.
She thanked Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation for expanding the Girls in ICT initiative to benefit girls in the Northern Region.
“Thanks to Girls in ICT, my 999 friends and I learnt of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and its related careers. Because you believed in us, I want to promise on behalf of my friends, Hon. Minister, that we have accepted the challenge to take up STEM-related careers. Hon. Ursula, we shall surely make you proud.”
Since 2012, the Girls in ICT initiative has benefited 11,981 young girls and 1,200 teachers. In each region, best 100 girls receive their own laptops, the best 10 teachers and all district girl child coordinators are also given laptops.
The initiative 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 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.
Besides, Christiana Awea, Amanda Daal of Kpandai Girls Model JHS came second while Husinatu Nasara Mohammed of Tamale SDA Main JHS took the third position. Both ladies also received certificates of participation, plaques, laptops, ICT lab set up for their schools and cash of Gh¢2,500.00 and Gh¢2,000.00 respectively.
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
