CAMFED Ghana has on Tuesday, November 24, held a ceremony to launch its library of e-learning assets. The short but impressive event took place at the CAMFED Association Centre in Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region, where the organization has its second office.
The initiative is part of measures to ensure continuous learning for school children during school closures occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the initiative, CAMFED with support from the Mastercard Foundation, has purchased a “library” of e-learning assets in the form of mobile tablets, routers with data bundles, smart TV sets, and internet-in-a-box devices.
In her welcome address, Mrs. Sally Ofori Yeboah, National Director of CAMFED Ghana stated that the e-learning project is part of a holistic, long term strategy whereby CAMFED will work to develop a suite of interactive e-learning content for young women’s work-readiness skills, transitions to employment and enterprise development.
The goal, she stated, is to position young women for the post-pandemic economy which will likely include more opportunities for remote working and digital business. The content will help “future proof” young people, supporting them to build their resilience and preparedness in the face of potential future extreme circumstances. It will also enable CAMFED to support them to continue to invest in ongoing personal and enterprise development during potential future periods of uncertainty.
The core audience is young women from disadvantaged backgrounds who have completed secondary education and are mostly based in rural communities. Overall, the resources should be relevant for young people in Ghana.
Mrs. Ofori Yeboah added that providing a suite of e-learning hardware will enable marginalized young people (especially learners) to continue to invest in self-learning and to develop work-readiness skills. This is important because as the focus has shifted to e-learning and online personal development and career planning, the most marginalized young people in rural communities who lack access to digital resources will be disadvantaged.
As part of the event, there was the screening of ‘My Better World’ (MBW) animation videos that were developed by Impact (Ed) International (formerly Discovery Learning Alliance) in partnership with CAMFED. This is an animated series based on CAMFED’s MBW curriculum. The series was developed with the help of local teens, and brought to life by a team of artists and animators across Africa. The series follows the adventures of six African teens as they navigate the complex challenges of school, family and friendship. Along the way, they discover their strengths and learn how to support each other.
CAMFED has also developed interactive, gender-sensitive e-learning videos (on inspiring entrepreneurship stories, what makes an entrepreneur successful, scenes from a customer conversation, business planning masterclass, ethical leadership, online safety, and job interview roleplays) for enterprise, transitions and work-readiness to build skills and resilience.
The digital content will form a valuable complement to CAMFED’s facilitated guide courses and facilitators will draw upon these resources as they reach out to young people with the MBW, Transitions and Enterprise programs. CAMFED will ensure these assets become widely available to other Young Africa Works partners for use on their platforms. “We hope this will support a wider gender-sensitive approach to career planning, transitions and enterprise development”, she concluded.
In his remarks during the event, Rev. Cyprian Kwasi Akansia, Deputy Northern Regional Director of Education commended CAMFED and the Mastercard Foundation for the initiative noting that e-learning resources have become useful now than ever before in light of the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Ghana Education Service will support and collaborate with institutions that implement such initiatives for the benefit of young people”, he added.