GIFEC commences digital skills training for visually-impaired facilitators

As part of the Digital Transformation Centers (DTC) Project, Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications (GIFEC) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), are collaborating with stFoundation to provide Basic Computer Skills training, for the visually impaired.

Dubbed "Introduction to Computer Basics for the Visually Impaired (ICBVI)", the project seeks to train sighted and visually-impaired teachers on how to instruct visually impaired pupils in the fundamentals of PC use.

The Training of Trainers for the project began with a brief Opening Ceremony at the Department of Assistive Technology of the University of Ghana, where the training of 20 Trainers is taking place from 13th to 24th November 2023.

During the ceremony, Mr. Prince Sefah, the Administrator of GIFEC expressed his appreciation to the partners of the DTC Project for extending the project partnership and scope to provide digital skills to visually impaired persons across the country.

He added that the DTC has trained over 14,000 citizens and is on track to train about 3,000 more by the end of the year. By early 2024, 20,000 citizens would have benefited from the project, 30% of whom are from marginalised groups.

According to Mr. Sefah, “GIFEC is committed to ensuring the use of the Fund’s resources to provide access and enhance the capacity of citizens in Underserved and Unserved communities, including Persons with Disability.”

He added that GIFEC has over the years provided laptops to special needs students at the University of Cape Coast and the Wesley College of Education, as well as equipped the ICT lab of the Akropong School for the Blind, and articulated plans to update ICT resources at the Department of Assistive Technology of the University of Ghana.

Mr. Sefah mentioned that GIFEC has adopted the DTC’s Coding for Kids training project and is extending it to cover more communities in the country.

Similarly, he said, GIFEC plans to study, adopt and scale up the ICBVI project, in addition to other generic projects.

He encouraged participants to consume the knowledge in order to facilitate the training of more people with special needs.

Senior Project Manager from the ITU, Robyn Fysh iterated the desire of the DTC Partners and stFoundation to scale up efforts to extend digital skills to marginalised and underserved communities across all 16 regions of the country.

She expressed her excitement to having expertise and courses to offer instructors skills and knowledge for training in their communities and Community ICT Centres.

She wished participants a fruitful learning experience and hoped that trainers and facilitators would own skills to be able to provide quality learning experiences and facilitate quality learning outcomes for visually impaired persons in their communities.

Mr. Alexander Bankole Williams, Head of the Department of Assistive Technology of the University of Ghana, in his remarks, said “We are delighted that this is one of the greatest efforts coming across Ghana that seeks to actually posit the availability of digital knowledge in the hands of blind and partially-sighted persons in our local communities.”

He hoped that participants would pay attention to the knowledge being imparted and ensure skills are adequately delivered for the maximum transformation of the digital landscape.

The goal of the training of trainers is to equip participants with the requisite knowledge and skills to facilitate the training of more persons with Visual Impairments across the country from 2024.

50 more trainers will be trained by January 2024.