Mrs Anna Mkapa, Tanzania’s former first Lady, on Saturday opened a 200,000-dollar Information Communication Training Centre (ICT) at the Women’s Vocational Training Institute (WVTI) at Sokode-Lokoe, near Ho.

The two-storey facility known as the “Rebecca Agroh Memorial ICT Centre,” was built and equipped under the initiative of Dr Ken Kwaku of the “Ken Kwaku Group of Companies,” in honour of his late mother Ms. Rebecca Agroh, a former Headmistress of the WVTI.

A brochure containing the biography of the late Ms Agroh said: “This Centre was built through the generous material and moral support of anonymous persons.”

It listed 20 personalities, including, Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, and others from Tanzania, India, Lebanon, Mauritius, Malaysia, Namibia, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda and United States of America, as contributors to the provision of the Centre.

In addition to 20 computers; 15 and five already provided by the Ghana Investment Centre for Electronic Communication, and the Gender Responsive Skills and Community Development Project respectively, Dr Kwaku has added 30 computers, 19 computer laptops with internet connectivity as awards to brilliant students and an uninterrupted power system.

Dr Kwaku would employ a technician, who would maintain equipment at the Centre for five years.

“I have no hesitation in affirming that this ICT centre is a fitting memorial to a great Ghanaian Lady and a great African Woman,” Mrs Mkapa said.

She said the Centre was “the first practical and physical expression of gratitude and recognition of Ken’s mother.”

“Congratulations for keeping her memory so vividly, so practically and so continually alive. The Baganda, have a saying: that a parent dies in the body but not in the minds of the children.”

Mrs Juliana Azumah-Mensah, Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs, commended Dr Kwaku “for this noble gesture. You have made your mother and all of us proud as Ghanaians.”

She said the Centre would complement government’s efforts of promoting quality skills training for gainful employment among the youth.

Mrs Azumah-Mensah asked students to take advantage of the Centre and broaden their knowledge, and interact with their counterparts elsewhere to find solutions to their challenges, rather than indulging in “useless social interactions with the outside world.”

Ms Bernice Akuley, Headmistress of the Institute, expressed gratitude to its benefactors. She said the Institute lack demonstration and classroom blocks.

Ms Akuley said the WVTI has so far trained 4,000 young women in employable skills.**