As part of preparations towards the celebration of this year's 'Girls in ICT Day', a series of activities involving hands-on ICT workshops promoting opportunities for girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are being held simultaneously at the Community Information Centres (CICs) in the Eastern Region.

The activities are being held at Abiriw, Dawu, Kwabeng, New Abirem, Akim Swedru,Kwahu Praso, Somanya, Kibi and New Tafo all in communities in the Eastern Region.

The Girls in ICT Day celebration is an awareness-raising initiative designed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to pay tribute to women's contribution to the technology careers to a new generation of girls with interest in science and mathematics.

On April, 29 this year, the Ministry of Communications, incollaboration with the ministries of Gender, Children and Social Protection; Education; Environment,Science,Technology and Innovation will be organizing the Girls in ICT Day celebrations in Koforidua, the Eastern regional capital, on the theme 'Girls In ICT: Key to Innovation And National Growth'.

The celebration has begun with training programmes for managers of the respective CICs in Somanya in the Yilo Krobo district. The training programme brought together five volunteers from Koforidua polytechnic, two regional and district education officers from the eastern region as well as various CIC managers in the region.

The volunteers have so far been trained to use the module prepared by the Girls in Adhoc Committee,, an NGO, to sensitize the school girls to use ICT tools, techniques and equipments.

The modules also present pportunities that exist in the ICT career environment.

The training module also included the identification of computing elements and their functions, including computers,pen drives,modems,external drives,UPS,iPads etc.

Issues related to links,invitations,postings access,pictures, passwords,virus hacking were explained to the participants.

Madam Eva Lokko,chairperson of the the Girls-in-ICT Adhoc Committee; Fauzia Sidqii and Afua Mensah representatives of the National Information Technology Agency (NITA) and the National Communications Authourity (NCA) respectively; and Patricia Dovi Sampson, focal person for the communication ministry were present at the training.

Others included Mahama Abubakari Nuhu,Clara Pinkra from Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) and Victoria Dey Kumah from Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC).

Meanwhile the first phase preparations for the marking of the Girls in ICT Day has ended sucessfully with the training and sensitization of 411 girls.

Each Community Information Centre (CIC) trained the number of girls based on the number of computers at the CICs and this guaranteed a one-to-one ratio of girls to computers.

In this regard the hand-on experience for each girl was subsequently facilitated. 

The CIC manager at Kwahu Praso in the Kwahu South district,Adamu Yussif, expressed satisfaction with the 65 girls they trained.

''The girls were excellent, and that their seriousness and curiosity to know more made the workshop very interesting'', he stated.