YAYI ICT WORKSHOP ON WEB 2.0

Wonderful training on our special activities








Special Initiatives


Yayi forum, a project of yayi , provides an online forum for people all over the world, empowering people by ICT to be a global citizen. It connects the world, creating opportunities, collaborating people and is concerned with changing their society and the world. In this platform, people & organizations are interaction with each other globally, exercising their freedom & exposing their creativity. Similarly, people post their articles & comments, read interviews, learn about events & scholarship information, make organizational partnership & so on. They post their local and global issues in Forum and Blogs. Likewise, they can send e-cards on ICT, peace, human rights, youth and other social issues. It is a rural youth focused regular programme of yayi forum (yf). Its aim is to develop skilful human resources & increase literacy rate on ICT. It encourages rural youths for self and equal employment opportunities through ICT Training. (Yf) selects youths from its local partner’s organizations and provides training in kpone katamanso ,afienya, dawa and its surroundings.




HE OPPORTUNITIES ICT’s PRESENT FOR THE YOUTH OF GHANA


The Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS), on the 16th day of May, organised an ICT sensitization forum for some selected second cycle institutions within the Accra metropolis. The basic objective of the forum was to highlight some of the very salient opportunities Information and Communications Technologies (ICT’s) present for today’s youth and how best they can tap into these opportunities.

The former Director of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Miss Eva Lokko, who gave a presentation on, ‘What opportunities ICT’s present for the youth of Ghana’, indicated that ICTs are tools that make knowledge acquired more useful and productive.
She said every profession or job in ICT is not gender specific and that one needs to have good education if he or she really wants to succeed in ICT related careers and not end up on the streets. She therefore advised students gathered to take their studies more seriously as it held the key to the success of their future, particularly in this era when ICT’s and technological gadgets are fast taking over the world’s economy.

‘ICTs are in use everyday and especially in schools the writings we do are all word processing. ICT systems will help in all the accounting we do in schools everyday. You need not know all the jargons in ICTs before you can effectively use them but all you need is a good knowledge of the software being used at any material time. Those who are good in categorisation and memorising are good in data base aspect of ICTs. All web searches in the café are just searching through data bases that people have developed and put there. In ICTs, we have the software and hardware people. The software people do content and web designing, whiles the hardware people go into assembling of computers and networking.’ She said, as she enlightened the youth on the basic operations of the computer.

Mrs. Oduro Mensah, a Guidance and Counselling Coordinator of the Ghana Education Service (GES) also gave a presentation on ‘The role of the ICTs in promoting Guidance and Counselling for the Youth in Ghana’.

She said guidance and counselling was still an on going procedure in schools. According to her, ‘ICT’s have taken the centre stage in our development. It is also helping the guidance and counselling processes.’ She explained that, the guidance and counselling has also gone through the main frame, mini and digital phases of the computer.
She indicated that websites for example are helping in the guidance and counselling through modules like ‘Self Assessment’, where one can fill a questionnaire on the web to know who he or she is. This she explained, has enabled students, who hitherto could not seek face-to-face counselling, gained access to yet quality forms of online coucelling.

Mr. Leopold Armah gave a presentation on what opportunities ICT policy provided for the youth in Ghana and how to use theses opportunities in championing the youth development agenda of Ghana. The presentation looked at observed changes both globally and locally and the prospects it held for the Youth
He further indicated that though he was not part of the team that developed the policy, he has followed it closely. ‘Today’s modern world is undergoing a fundamental transformation, as the industrial society that marked the 20th century rapidly gives way to the information society themed “the Information revolution” of the 21st century’. He said, adding that ICT has now become a vital engine of growth for the world’s economy and that it was inevitable that the use of ICT has been integrated into virtually every facet of commerce, education, and governance in developed world and has become a critical factor in creating wealth worldwide.

He said these advantages notwithstanding, the introduction of ICT,s has further widened the gap between the haves and the have-nots and that serious measure needed to be put in place to check this anomaly.
He also explained that some of the key strategies adopted in coming out with the policy were to:
• Transform Ghana into an information and knowledge-driven ICT literate nation.
• Promote the deployment and exploitation of information, knowledge and technology within the economy and society as key drivers for socio-economic development.

Before closing down on his submission he quoted the former United Nation’s Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, "Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be the key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society’s margins, all of us will be impoverished. Let us ensure that all young people have every opportunity to participate fully in the lives of their societies”

He concluded by inspiring the youth to develop themselves and be part of the ICT era by taking advantage the opportunities ICT’s come with. He urged them to use the knowledge they will acquire from the ICT’s wisely and they should all see themselves as beginners and need to encourage each other.

Prince Deh, deputy coordinator of GINKS gave a brief overview of GINKS. He indicated that GINKS is a network of individuals and organisations working together to provide knowledge for development. It was established in 2003 as collaboration between the International Institute for Communication and Development and its local partners in Ghana, with the aim of streamlining all disjointed ICT projects, initiatives and programmes in Ghana, in a way that provides solutions to challenges and problems. He said that the focus of GINKS is in areas like; providing an Online (www. Ginks.org) and Offline (including iConnect Ghana Newsletter) space for networking and Strengthening and facilitating strategic alliances among network members, to engender the development of information and knowledge base.

Present were students and teachers from Accra Girls Secondary School, Ebenezer Secondary School, St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School and Wesley Grammar Secondary School. Also present were Guidance and Counselling Coordinators, the Media and Resource persons. Questions by students at the end of the forum were also addressed comprehensively to allay any fears they may have had about the speedy emergence of ICT’s in the world’s economy.