What is International Girls in ICT Day?
International Girls in ICT Day is an initiative backed by all ITU Member States in ITU Plenipotentiary Resolution 70 (Rev. Busan, 2014). It aims at creating a global environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to consider careers in the growing field of information and communication technologies (ICTs). International Girls in ICT Day is celebrated on the 4th Thursday in April every year.
ProjeKt Inspire with support from Google commemorated this event at New Hope for girls center located in Tabata Dar es salaam on 23th and 24th April, 2016. The event had a total 27 girls from NEW HOPE CENTER.
About Participants: Most of the girls come from diverse backgrounds that limited their exposure to Technology, computer science and education in general. They come from broken homes, some are orphans and some have experiences different kinds of child abuse, brought together under one roof by Madam Consoler. Age range was from 12 yrs to 28 yrs. Some are in Primary schools, secondary schools, vocational education and some are en-route to self employment. More than 90% did not have any idea on how ICT can help them in school and other activities, or even career opportunities in Computer science and engineering.
Organizers from ProjeKt Inspire: Alex Chambika; Jesca Chengula; Benedicto Marcus; Francisco Balenga; Paul Mandele; Happiness Francis
CURRICULUM, PLAN AND THE TIMETABLE
Our curriculum mainly based on the type of people that we were dealing with statistically only few numbers of participants had a Knowledge about ICT field and its capabilities. Based from what they know we had to start from scratch
The curriculum also was split into two categories;
- Learning
- Doing(Practicing)
The Curriculum:
1. Complete presentation with projector
- ICT concept in general
- The computer
- The Internet
- Microsoft Applications
- Documentary inspiring videos
2. Group Activities
- Microsoft word
- Microsoft Power Point Presentation
- Introduction to excel
- Creating an E-mail Address
- How to play video and audio files
OUTCOME OF THE EVENT
At the end of the event girls were able to understand the importance of ICT in their daily activities, what computers can do to simplify their work be it school or other areas. Also girls were able to understand the use of some of Microsoft programs and they participated in group activities which gave them an opportunity to practice and complete tasks using Microsoft word and PowerPoint
We were able to inspire these girls to learn more and pursue careers in Computer science and computer engineering by raising their curiosity through videos showing their fellow girls from different parts of the world working and taking courses like computer science, telecommunications, software engineering etc.
Since the center had girls who were doing bakery and tailoring we taught them how to use the social networks as a platform to advertise their products.
Written by: Alex Chambika
