Entry: David Noyes, World Cocoa Foundation Program Coordinator
I wanted to share with the readers an update from my recent travels in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. For those who don’t know me, my name is David Noyes, World Cocoa Foundation Program Coordinator for ECHOES, an initiative funded by USAID and World Cocoa Foundation company members. I am working with Charlie Feezel on the second phase of the program with the ambitious goal of reaching over 160,000 youth and young adults in West Africa.
On December 8, 2009 I joined ECHOES partners in Ghana for a local work planning meeting to coordinate activities over the next two years. ECHOES partners IFESH, Winrock International, and World Education brought together their local field staff, IFESH volunteers, and country coordinators to discuss timing of activities in the communities, collaboration and coordination of these activities, and the monitoring and evaluation plan for ECHOES.
One of the interesting new activities under the new phase of the program is Community Resource Centers which will be operated by our partners, together with local communities. By October 2010 Winrock International, with significant community contributions, expects to have established eight ICT-enabled community resource centers in the Western Region of Ghana. These centers will be based at junior high schools and will be equipped with computers, internet access (or simulated access through the e-Granary system), printers, photocopiers, scanners, projectors, and books. Once the centers have been established, all three partners will use the space to coordinate training activities, including ICT training for teachers, administrators, and center managers; ICT training for youth; computer-based literacy training for adults; and training for young farmers to enable them to gain access to agricultural information. The first two centers will be operational by the end of January 2010.
The ICT centers are particularly interesting to me, since young people in remote areas of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire will have access for the first time to computers and the internet. Thinking back on when I was a math and science teacher with the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso, I would not have imagined that this would be possible on this kind of scale. As the second phase of ECHOES develops, I look forward to sharing with you some of the achievements, and challenges of bringing improved educational opportunities to youth through this important program.
Comments (3)
Hello David, my name is Ben Addom, a PhD Candidate at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies but originally from Ghana. I see your post very interesting as I was just returning from Ghana after spending over 6 months in rural communities around Cape Coast/Mankessim, Kumasi/Ejisu, and Accra/Dodowa.
I interacted with local vegetable farmers, cocoa farmers, and mango farmers respectively from the three sites to understand their current modes and patterns of communication, and the existing tools that are being used. I also talked to researchers, agricultural extension agents and some other intermediary organizations.
I find the Community Resource Center idea very interesting because one key finding in my report to the FAO is that, while there are basic tools being used to facilitate people to people communication, and people to information communication, there is basically an absence of information resource centers or facilities and hence no aspect of people to resources communications (one of the key component of collaboration).
However, I will like to state that too much emphasis on technology may not be the answer to the problem on the ground, be it the youth or the local peasant farmer. We rather need to build a viable "Information Infrastructure" that can withstand the emerging technologies and help address the communication challenges that we currently have.
Good luck with your good work and I wish we can chat offline on this topic.
Ben
Posted by Benjamin Kwasi Addom | January 25, 2010 2:43 AM
Posted on January 25, 2010 02:43
Hello Ben,
Thanks for your comments and feedback! We certainly agree that relying solely on education will not solve all problems on the ground for youth, young adults, and farmers. While technology-equipped resource centers are an important part of the ECHOES program, it is just one of a number of approaches that we use to empower communities through relevant education. The ECHOES program consists of agricultural and life skills training for in-school and out-of-school youth, teacher training, function literacy training for adults, family support scholarships, and establishing technology-enabled resource centers. This approach helps to strengthen basic education while at the same time enhancing the value of education in the communities through relevant learning. The resource centers can help enhance the scalability of this endeavor by providing tools that enable community members to address their own education and information needs.
On a side note, in Ghana, national exams include questions on computers, while most children in rural zones may never even have seen a computer. Therefore we hope that the integration of computers might bridge a technology gap and promote higher scores in these rural areas. The centers being established under ECHOES are based at rural schools, but are community resource centers, available to members of the community as well. Depending on how the community establishes their management plan, the centers may be used during the day by teachers and students, and then in the evenings opened up to community members – making the school a center for learning and development for the whole community.
Posted by David Noyes | January 25, 2010 12:41 PM
Posted on January 25, 2010 12:41
Why didn’t I find this article earlier? Keep up the great work!
Posted by registry cleaner comparison | March 8, 2010 4:00 AM
Posted on March 8, 2010 04:00