A nongovernmental organisation, Friends of Adaklu is undertaking an initiative aimed at bridging the information technology and communication (ICT) gap between urban and rural Ghana.

The programme will see selected young females in the Adaklu District of the Volta Region provided with the essential skills to understand the dynamics of ICT to enhance their integration into the global village.

The Adaklu district is one of the districts with the highest number of schools lacking educational essentials in Ghana. Aside from suffering an infrastructure deficit, most schools do not have the requisite logistics needed for the study of ICT.

Teachers are therefore handicapped in teaching the pupils the subject, limiting them to teach just theory, thereby depriving the learners of the practical aspects of the subject.

This challenge birthed an idea by the founders of Friends of Adaklu to initiate a special ICT club to provide training for members, with special focus on female learners.

The Country Representative of Friends of Adaklu, Stella Kudah said her outfit’s partners and The Academy, an educational institution in California raised funds to procure laptops, a projector, and a wifi to kick off the training course, dubbed “Girls Who Code”.

She said members of the club numbering 8, "meet on Saturdays and spend 3 hours" learning how to code, and also get introduced to other beneficial ICT programmes such as emailing, Zoom app, safety on the internet, and cyberbullying.

“We have linked them to a teacher who comes online and teaches them coding and others. It has been amazing, these kids now have their personal emails, they have Zoom accounts, they have Snap accounts for coding and they are so excited about it”, she said.

She said that as a result of the Girls Who Code Program, A Coding Club has been formed to further expand the programme.

"Friends of Adaklu owes an enormous debt of thanks to Christina Randazzo who initiated this program in Adaklu and together with her family and Pupils of The Academy in California purchased laptops to support the Girls Who Code programme.

In addition she is also covering the expenses of an ICT Specialist, Mounir Shita to train the beneficiaries in basic ICT knowledge and how to code with the Snap programming language", she said.

Mounir Shita expressed excitement about participating in the program which would contribute significantly not only to the progress of the beneficiaries but the entire Adaklu District.

He was amazed at how the beneficiaries are enthused about the training and have quickly acquired ICT knowledge, though they started as individuals with zero knowledge about the computer and its uses.

He said the beneficiaries are fortunate to learn coding at a time when the world is transitioning from writing codes to using AI to develop programs.

“Instead of writing codes as was traditionally done for about 50 years now, we are now just starting a new era where you can talk to an AI, tell it what code you want and it will do it for you.

That is the future of coding and if these girls can learn the basic coding and learn the future of coding, they will have an amazing future”, he explained.

He asserted that the program serves as an inspiration, hope, and motivation for the beneficiaries to explore technology.

The USA Communication Liaison of Friends of Adaklu, Christina Randazzo said the initiative presents her with the right opportunity to help the beneficiaries “engage with the world outside their local community” to expose them to prospects that would enhance their lives.

She expressed satisfaction with the pace at which the beneficiaries are picking up during the training.

“Before a few months ago, these girls had never been exposed to computers and coding. Since we started this program, I have been satisfied by their desire to learn and how quickly they pick up the concepts.

As long as the students continue to show interest, I am committed to helping them succeed”, she said.

A beneficiary, Precious Adzimani could not hide her joy about participating in the training programme, indicating how she has become accustomed to computers and its programmes, something she lacked in the past.

Another beneficiary, Isabella Teikpah, explained she would not have had any idea about the computer if not for the “Girls Who Code” programme which she described as an eye opener.

She is hoping to excel in the ICT discipline and specialise in any of the fields in technology at the tertiary level, hoping the programme would provide a firm foundation.

The programme has been expanded to benefit 22 more selected pupils from across the district, which included male learners as well.

That notwithstanding, Madam Stella indicated the need to extend the programme to other schools to ensure all pupils in the district benefit extensively from it.

She therefore extended an appeal to all and sundry to help raise funds to procure additional computers and other peripherals, as well as cater for data to ensure effective implementation of the programme.