The need for more women to be computer literate and actively involved in Information and Communication Technology has been advocated.
This formed the central point and idea behind the ‘She Creates Awka’ Summer Camp, organized by the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC – a non governmental and non-profit making organization, which took place at the Prof. Kenneth Dike Central E-Library, Awka, the Anambra State Capital.
Speaking at the event, the Programmes Manager in the W.TEC, Mrs. Folashade Braimoh, said that the aim of the event was to increase women’s literacy level in the ICT field and empower a good number of them to seek career opportunities in the field in the long run. She disclosed that the organisation, which was founded in 2008, has organised a number of events and trainings for girls in past, while maintaining that the ‘She Creates Awka Camp’ was a two-week camp of intensive training for girls in secondary school between the ages of 13 and 17 years.
She disclosed that Anambra was chosen as one of the locations for the summer camp, which held in four different locations across the federation, stating that in the state they partnered with the Anambra State Library Board as well as the EduFun Technik, Onitsha, where the trainees were taken to for an excursion during the camp.
On what happens after the training, the ICT guru noted that the organisation have some follow-up mechanisms on ground through which they monitor, checkmate and evaluate how the girls have put what they have learnt into practice or utilize them for their benefits, other people around them and the society at large.
On her own part, the Ag. Director of the Anambra State Library Services, Dr. Nkechi Udeze, one of the partners in the event, described the event as apt, owing to the fact that the world itself is rapidly becoming computerized and digitized on daily basis, and time fast approaching when some, who are neither ICT inclined nor computer literate, will lose their relevance in some offices.
Decrying the rate of moral decadence in the society today, Dr. Udeze said that the event was also used as a platform to educate the girls on the core values of Ndi Igbo, which she noted was gradually becoming degenerated, as well as some entrepreneurial skills that will prepare and enable them become good people and agents of change in the society, even as she charged the trainees to make good use of what they have learnt in the course of the training.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Project Officer of the W.TEC, Mr. Tarabina Lesley Kelly, said the organisation’s mission was to educate, connect and empower Nigerian women through active engagement with information and communication technology via training, mentoring and research; maintaining that they were aiming at creating a society where Nigerian women and girls are able to create and use information and communication technology for learning, activism, entrepreneurship, and professional activities effectively.
He extolled their partners and charged the participants to go into the society and make good use of what they were taught and most importantly, impart the knowledge on fellow young ones out there, who were not opportuned to have such training, as through that, they will impart greatly in their society at large.
The event, which attracted a former Director in the Federal Ministry of Education, Mrs. Irene Ifejirika, featured recognition and awarding of prizes to the best performing students in the camp and in the training, who were as follows: Miss Umeadi Uchenna (1st position); Miss Obianjor Chidinma (2nd position), and Miss Ufoaroh Mmesoma (3rd position).
Among other trainings, the students were, during the camp, taught web designing, animation programming, robotics programming, shoe making, business planning, computing fundamentals, such as Microsoft word and power point programs, among other packages.