Mohammed Rahimmah receiving her award from Ursula Owusu-Ekuful in Damongo
The Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation has climaxed the National Girls-In-ICT Day celebration with an award ceremony at Damongo, the Savannah Region.
Mohammed Rahimmah,11, from T.I. Ahmadiya Islamic School at Kpalbusi in the North East Gonja District in the Savannah Region emerged as the overall winner in the Girls-in-ICT project in the Savannah region.
She received a laptop, certificate, plaque, GHS 3,000 cash prize, and an ICT lab to be established in her district.
The second position is Alfreda Frimpong and the third position is Salu Saratu Alele also receives laptops, certificates, plaques, and GHS 2,500 cash prizes, and will also get an ICT lab established in their districts.
The other 97 girls were awarded laptops and certificates as the best out of the 1,000 girls selected for the Girls-in-ICT program in the Savannah region.
Some 40 best teachers from 7 districts in the Savannah region were also awarded laptops and certificates.
The National Girls-In-ICT is being implemented by the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication ( GIFEC).
At the climax of the National Girls-In-ICT Day in Damongo, the Minister for Communications and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, indicated that there was a need for the country to take ICT education seriously and encourage the girl child to develop an interest in ICT to ensure the bridge of the gender digital divide.
“As we are building a digital Ghana and gradually moving away from the manual to digital space, we need to demystify ICT for all and encourage girls to take interest in that field for the country to benefit fully from the digital transformation agenda and bridge the gender digital divide”.
The Minister encouraged the girls who benefited from the program to continue to practice the skills they have learned.
She urged chiefs, opinion leaders, the Savannah Regional Director of Education, and other stakeholders to institutionalize ICT and digital skills in various schools in the region to build their girls’ capacity in ICT.
The Deputy Minister for Education, Gifty Twum Ampofo, entreated parents to support their children with their mobile phones to learn ICT.
“The child can’t afford mobile phones and the whole house might have only one Android phone but you should be able to give it to them to learn online to uplift themselves.”
She urged the girls to use the phones wisely and desist from using them the wrong way when they are handed over to them by their parents.
The Savannah Regional Minister, Hon. Saeed Muhazu Jibril thanked the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation and the government for the good initiative adding that ICT plays an important role in the development of every society.
FROM Eric Kombat, Damongo