Mr Godsway Agyagbo, Director of Programmes, The Oasis, has said the centre was committed to equipping the children and youth of Gbi-Wegbe with digital and employable skills.
He said the opening of the centre, a new youth development centre aimed at empowering young people, was to give back to society and keep children and senior high school graduates engaged during holidays and free hours under programmes run by the centre.
Mr Agyagbo speaking during the opening of the centre noted that the programmes included, an ‘After-school filmmaking club’ which would teach photography, filmmaking, animation, and graphic design as a means of engaging the beneficiaries aged 14 to 21 years in their education.
He explained that the ‘After-school coding club’ would teach children between 10 and 18 years of all backgrounds how to code to improve their computational thinking, boost problem-solving skills and help them develop confidence and communication skills.
Mr Agyagbo noted that there would be sporting activities such as video games, athletics, football, and dance classes among others as a means of using physical education to teach young people about time management, competitive attitude and working as a team.
The centre he said, would also provide youth and adolescent counselling sessions for young people and serve as a safe place where they could feel free to share their worries and be provided with the needed help.
Madam Blair Kaplan, Founder of The Global Resilience Project, and a Social Media Marketing Expert, noted that her partnership in opening and running the centre was due to the vision of Mr Agyagbo for the children and youth of Gbi-Wegbe.
She noted that children in Canada had access to technology from an early age and got to explore and learn computer skills including coding which all children in the world including Gbi-Wegbe must have too.
Madam Blair noted that the possibilities of a very bright future to make money, be happy and resilient hinged on learning digital skills.
She said it was her hope that the children would learn and gain new skills such as social media marketing, coding, and building websites, technical skills which would help them get jobs that would connect them to parts of the world while in Ghana.
Mr Daniel Noble Awume, Hohoe Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), noted that the centre was a good starting point because it would provide extra digital skills for students outside their classrooms.
He noted that the country was IT-driven, and the facility was of importance to the Municipality.
Mr Awume noted that parents were focal points of young people and youth development, hence, the need for them to focus on the development of their children in areas of reading, IT and classroom work.
Mr Manfred Adzah, Regent of Gbi-Wegbe, on behalf of the community, expressed gratitude to the founders and partners of the centre, which would go a long way to equip the youth and children with skills that would enable them to be competitive with others wherever they found themselves.
He noted that the community would offer the necessary support for the centre to develop to be able to offer others beyond the community digital skills.
Source: Ghana News Agency