CAMFED-Ghana Builds ICT Centres In Northern Ghana

The Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED-Ghana), a non-governmental organisation, is building three ultra modern Information Communication Technology centres in some selected districts of the Northern region of Ghana. With financial support from the Google Cooperate Giving Council, the beneficiary districts include Nanumba North (Bimbilla), Mamprusi East (Gambaga) and Gushegu all in the Northern region. Among other interventions, this forms part of CAMFED-Ghana�s pledge to promote female education in rural communities. The organization has already completed and commissioned the Bimbila ICT centre with the promise to commission the remaining two in the coming months. Speaking at the official launch, a Deputy Minister for Communication, Ernest Atokwei Armah, encouraged students in the area to take advantage of the centre and enhance their knowledge in ICT. �Every child everywhere in this world is expected to get a very good background in ICT: so to speak a child in Accra, Bimbilla or anywhere in Ghana should know what ICT is, so they will be able to chat and communicate,� he said. The deputy communications minister underscored the need for farmers and businessmen in Bimbilla township and its environs to patronise the centre, seeing that as the best means of transacting business online. He stated: �ICT can allow our farmers in this particular community to communicate with the outside world to know the good price for their commodities so they will know exactly when their commodities are being needed and the good price to have for them.� In a speech read on her behalf, the Executive Director of CAMFED, Mrs Dolores Dicksson, said the organisation saw that ICT education had become a necessity and that informed its decision to build the centres. �Over the years CAMFED has engaged itself in the area of promoting female education but has come to realize that ICT has become a necessity; that is why we have decided to put up ICT centres to help residents of the beneficiary districts contribute and be part of the World Wide net of communication.� Mrs Dolores Dicksson nonetheless cautioned students in the area against using the centre for cyber crime and its related activities. CAMFED-Ghana works in 24 districts in the Northern, Upper East and Central regions of Ghana in the areas of women empowerment through education of female children, micro credit schemes, advocating for the inclusion of women in decision making process at the district level, career and entrepreneurship development, ICT training and among others. In its attempt to complement government�s efforts to improve upon the quality of education in the country especially in Northern Ghana, CAMFED-Ghana has multiplied girls� educational opportunities under its education programme, supporting girls from poor families with bursary packages to go to school.