Source : www.one.org
Interview Below
Thanks for chatting with us Ernestina! Can you tell us what the Ghana Code Club is about?
Technology is reinventing the world. Kids need new skills to prepare them for a successful career in the future but the current ICT (Information Communications Technology) curriculum does not include them which is quite alarming. This is where Ghana Code Club comes in. It is a volunteer led, after-school digital fun club that equips children between the ages of 8-17 years with coding skills. We have piloted with five schools and are ready to be launched into the majority of schools in Ghana during the first quarter of 2016.
What events in your life & career led you to create the Ghana Code Club?
I always dreamed of leading a team of IT professionals in creating cutting-edge solutions for Africa. This passion emerged when I worked for an IT firm in Accra back in 2000 as a secretary. I admired the IT consultants so much, especially the only lady among them. I remember I took home only about 10% of what the IT professionals earned at the time. I wanted to enroll on an HTML course (HTML is the standard coding language used to create webpages) but the little money I earned I used to take care of my siblings. Instead of waiting forever, I decided to teach myself any way I could. I got in touch with a web designer who for a small fee introduced me to the basics of HTML. I practiced any time I got the chance and within weeks, I was designing my own websites.
Eventually, with more confidence in my skills, I took out a classified ad promoting myself as a virtual assistant and took on four clients, including one web-based telecom company in the USA. In 2004 I was able to resign as a secretary, rent an office and eventually hire people to provide additional support.
A mere company’s secretary who was almost not noticed turned it around to become a business owner with international clients, paying employee salaries, mentoring people, assisting start-ups financially in my own small way, paying for college education fees for not less than five people – all because of that small change I made in my life and the new skills I learned!
I was so grateful and so happy with my progress that I wanted to do something to empower others with the kind of skill set that got me this far. I registered the NGO, Healthy Career Initiative in 2007 with the objective of empowering students with the skill set they will need to thrive in the 21st century but unfortunately it remained relatively inactive due to my heavy workload. Then I got married and had children and things slowed down even further as I realized I needed to work from home and be there for my kids when they needed me.
One day, when my boy was 5, I was searching the internet for a simple programming platform to start teaching him and came across a blog about kids learning to code in the UK and the kind of things they were building that triggered my enthusiasm for my inactive NGO. All of a sudden, I wanted Ghanaian kids to create the same exciting digital stuff kids in the developed world were creating. Things like interactive stories, websites, games and animation. Immediately, I put plans together and Ghana Code Club was born.
What is the best part of your job?
The best part of my job is being in the classroom with the kids feeling empowered that they have created things that can be used by another person from any part of the world. The smiles on their faces make me feel wonderful and hopeful that these kids will go on to develop the digital footprint of Ghana and Africa and impact the world as a whole.
