Huawei Ghana, in collaboration with Rebecca Foundation, has begun a digital technologies training in Coding and Financial Technology (Fintech) for Junior High School (JHS) pupils and women respectively, in rural areas in Ghana.
The training comes as part of efforts to improve the digital literacy skills of children by exposing them to the basic coding skills and programming languages like; HTML, Scratch, and C++ as well as economically empowering women in the Northern, Western and Eastern regions of Ghana to enable them to take advantage of digital technologies to improve their livelihoods.
The pilot of the training, which began on 8th November 2021 at Damongo, in the Northern region, has benefitted 50 traders and 150 Junior High School pupils from Kurabaso JHS, Jafo JHS, Cathedral JHS, Yabum JHS, Presby JHS, ST. Anne’s JHS, Jakpa JHS, Damongo Girls Model JHS and Canteen JHS.
In a short kickoff meeting, Ghana’s First Lady and founder of Rebecca Foundation, Mrs Rebecca Akuffo-Addo, commended Huawei for positively partnering the Rebecca Foundation to train more girls and women, especially in digital technologies to bridge the gender gap in ICT.
She mentioned that the Foundation is keen on embarking on activities and initiatives aimed at the socio-economic development of children and women across the country and the partnership with Huawei is in line with this objective.
The Director of Public Relations for Huawei Ghana, Mrs Jenny Zhou indicated during the meeting that Huawei is passionate about grooming more women in technology and as a result will continue to undertake such programmes to positively impact societies.
According to her, the initiative is in line with the 10th anniversary celebration of International Girls in ICT Day and Huawei’s Seeds for the Future- Women in Tech programme aimed at stimulating the interest of girls and young women in tech through training, workshops, career guidance and mentorship.
In his remarks, the Municipal Chief Executive of the West Gonja Municipality, Karimu Kusubari, commended Huawei Ghana and the Rebecca Foundation for bringing the digital technologies training to their doorstep and for including the district.
He entreated the students to take the training seriously and impact other children with the knowledge earned. He also called on Huawei to expand the training to cover more students in the municipality next year.
In addressing the students, Katribe Dramani, the Director of Education for the West Gonja Municipality also tasked the students to become ambassadors of ICT and ensure that what they have been taught, is put to good use.
The training is expected to benefit cumulatively, 400 more women and children from Mpohor in the Western Region and Asamankese in the Eastern Region of Ghana and empower students to become the future creators of technology by exploring programming to start building upon their computational thinking skills in their early childhood.
This training comes as part of Huawei’s promise to the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo- Addo to train 10,000 Ghanaians in ICT by 2024.