KYABOBO GILRS AND NKWANTA COMM. SNR HIGH TECH. SCHOOL ATTENDS GIRLS CAN CODE LAUNCH AT AITI-KACE CURTESSY MP FOR NKWANTA SOUTH, HON. GEOFFREY KINI

The MP for Nkwanta South Constituency in the Volta Region, Hon Geoffrey Kini has on Wednesday, 17th January, given out his Toyota pickup to Four girls in his constituency to attend this years ‘’Girls Can Code’’ launch in Accra. He also fuelled the car to and back from Accra. The selected girls represented schools including Kyabobo Girls School and Nkwanta Community Senior High Technical School all in the Nkwanta South Constituency.

The girls were led by the Head of IT Unit at Nkwanta Community Senior High Technical School, Mr. Bernard Joachim Potakey who was very instrumental in making sure the girls attend the event.
The MP’s passion for the Girl Child Education has necessitated his gesture. According to Mr. Kini, ICT has become an inevitable tool, and that although there is a wide market for programmers, coders and developers in the country, it is challenging when it comes to girls so he believes the project will go a long way to equip the young girls to also fit well in the space.

THE EVENT
A total of 300 young girls and 20 teachers from 10 Junior High Schools (JHSs) across the country will be trained in coding, entrepreneurship and other related Information and Communication Technology (ICT) programmes, starting January 2018 to August 2019.

The training programme, which is a collaborative project between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Heritage and Cultural Society of Africa (The HACSA) and Information for All Programme (IFAP) is being implemented by the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence (GI-KACE).

Christened “Girls Can Code: empowering girls and women through ICT”, the beneficiaries will undergo 36 weeks of training at the GI-KACE in Accra.
The special guest of honour for the event, the First Lady Mrs.Rebecca Akufo-Addo on Wednesday launched the “Girls Can Code Project Ghana” at the Advance Information Technology Institute, Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT in Accra.
Speaking at the launch, the First Lady urged young girls to take advantage of ICT, arguing that it can now be used to improve women’s economic outlook and address the gender gap.
“Indeed, the emerging digital economy, offers developing countries like Ghana an opportunity to take a quantum leap in development, by transforming the economy into a high- value-added, information and knowledge based economy. As more women understand the value of the Internet and ICT in terms of sustainable livelihoods, they will improve their quality of life and become more productive members of society. As women, we need to understand that, the Internet is a resource for empowerment, for restoration, for self-development and for arming oneself in the knowledge economy.”
“I am therefore happy to learn that this project seeks to train more girls. Ultimately, it will develop young girls to be critical thinkers and creators of technologies and inspire them to develop their full potential.”
The launch, which was done in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Communication, and Gender and Social Protection, also had support from UNESCO-IFAP, GES, DreamOval, HACSA and the Ghana- India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT.