Young Female Influencers (YFI), a young women-led network of change makers, has offered digital literacy training for women in Mangu, a suburb of Wa in the Wa Municipality to help them embrace digital technologies for enhanced growth and development.

The training was also to enlighten the women to encourage and support their children, especially girls to take up courses and other learnings in information technology (IT) and digital technologies.

It formed part of the YFI’s SecureTechsiStars project, aimed at empowering girls and young women and promoting girls’ inclusion in IT, being implemented in partnership with Plan International Ghana.

Administrative Secretary of the YFI, Linda Dassah said the world was fast globalizing with the advancement in technology which must be embraced for the improvement in the livelihoods and economic fortunes of the people.

She observed that women in the Mangu community and in general were lagging when it came to keeping up with emerging, digital technologies for improving their living standards.

Linda, therefore, indicated that the training was designed to introduce the women to available digital tools and technologies which they could leverage to promote their business activities.

She urged the women to offer supportive growth environments for their girl children to take an active part in learning information and digital technologies to stand competitive in the digital skills market.

Winifred Zoyaar, the facilitator of the training, said there was a plethora of job opportunities in the IT sector and encouraged the women to inspire their girl children to take studies in IT in Senior High Schools and Universities.

She noted that basic-level learners of IT could even utilize their skills in rendering digital technology, branding, and marketing services for clients to earn some money while in school or learning.

She intimated that being able to start earning money while being a learner is an unparalleled opportunity that IT offers which girls must be supported to take advantage of.

“One can learn basic skills like graphic designing, UX/UI design, basic content creation and start to make money from them in the meantime, even before immigrating into software development, etc”, she said.

She observed that girls shun away from IT for fear that they might not excel in the field overly seen as a preserve for boys.

She added that social and gender biases were also adversely affecting girls’ and women’s participation in IT as the field is generally seen as men’s and unladylike.

“If a girl is set out to learn ICT and asked her parents to get her a laptop or smartphone, she’s likely to face resistance or hesitation as compared to if she were”, Winifred observed.

Some participants at the training said the training offered them valuable insights into IT and its potential for girls which they did not know at first.

They promised that they were going to encourage and support their girl children to venture into the field of ICT.

“I’ve learned that I can do shopping right from my phone, and I now know the importance of ICT for my girl, I ‘ll buy her a laptop to start learning,” Ayishatu Issah, a participant, said.

Another participant, Faizatu Alhassan said, “I’m very impressed with the program because sometime past, we were made know that girls should not be in school but today that has changed, so I’m hopeful that girls would be supported to learn ICT in school and at home.”