Vodafone Ghana Foundation, the charity arm of Vodafone Ghana, has held a STEM education workshop for kids of the New Life Orphanage at Nungua in the Krowor municipality of the Greater Accra region.

The training forms part of activities to mark this year’s International Day of Education which seeks to highlight the most important transformations that have to be nurtured to realize everyone’s fundamental right to education and build a more sustainable, inclusive and peaceful future.

The kids were schooled on STEM, robotics, web development and coding to help steer technology transformation, achieve digital literacy and break the cycle of poverty that is leaving millions of children, youth and adults behind.

Speaking at the event, Head of Vodafone Ghana Foundation, Amaris Nana Adjei Perbi said his outfit will ensure that ICT centres are accessible to kids in the country.

“We are trying to establish an ICT centre here so that whenever we visit, we can garner the interest of the children. Every month, at the facilities that we visit, we collate the names of the kids and make sure that after the introductory lessons, they’ll also continue with other lessons that will help them to master the subject,” he said.

He added that “Today, many children have expressed interest in coding, web development, robotics and other sessions. We will follow up on them, provide the needed assistance and engage them further so that they can continue with whatever they have started."

Founder of the New Life Orphanage, Nii Afotey Botwe II, called for collaborative efforts to improve both the wellbeing and learning outcomes of the children.

“We are appealing for educational materials especially, textbooks. Because of the free education, we had to change the syllabus and when you visit some of our schools, there are no textbooks. We need books to enable the kids to study when they come home. Currently, we don’t have a computer lab and we have appealed to the team from Vodafone Ghana Foundation to come to our aid,” he said.

Birthday celebrants for January; Veteran Gospel musician, Madam Stella Aba Seal, Dental Surgeon, Dr Louisa Ansong Satekla, Beautician, Rebecca Donkor, Judge Louis Lamis of Kejetia Vs Makola fame and Abena Ruthy engaged the kids in fun activities and pledged to help nurture and build their skills.