WITIN Holds 6-Week Summer iCamp for Children

Women in Technology in Nigeria (WITIN) said preparations are on top gears towards hosting a six-week online work-at-home summer camp for children between the ages 9 to 18.
 
The programme tagged: “iCamp 2014”, WITIN said, children can participate from anywhere in the world, even as they are open to sponsorship.

While addressing journalists at this year’s two-day Total School Support Seminar/Exhibition (TSSS) organized by Edumark in Lagos, Martha Alade-Omoekpen, president, Women in Technology in Nigeria (WITIN), said the essence of the iCamp is to help young minds discover their innate ICT talents, provide digital opportunities by exposing them to high profile software that will advance and aid learning beyond the walls of classroom setting.

She said the summer programme will inspire innovative tendencies in the participating children.

“We are not just reaching out to adults alone; we are now reaching out to adolescents. However, there was a dossier raised that the way we are going the males might turn ‘endangered species’. So, through the iCamp we shall be conducting some research. We want to see how the male and female children are embracing and using technology. This iCamp will give us something intelligent to share with stakeholders,” she said.

The ingenuity of the iCamp attracted Yinka Ogunde, coordinator of the Edumart who expressed delight over WITIN’s designed programmes to attract attention of the young people to developing their talents.

Ogunde said: “What Women In Technology is doing is in line with what we are trying to achieve through the Total School Support programme. When we look at issues around, the way technology is redefining the way things are is formidable. It is, therefore, important that we carry the education community along.

“For instance, mothers are so engaged with other things that they find it difficult to teach their children anymore. Thus, the teachers who conduct the teaching should have access to the technology. That is why they know and understand what is going on within the education sector.

“That is what the Total School Support tries to do: bringing up what is new within the educational sector, so that the education community in Nigeria will be aware what is going on. There are organizations developing wonderful things that will change the way a child learns.

“Technology is formidable. You will be amazed what is going on with learning. They are mostly interactive in nature. If a teacher is not careful the children will leave him or her behind”.

On girl child education, she said, “When you educate a woman you are changing the face of a nation; redefining a whole community, society. It is important that the girl child is well educated, because the woman spends more time with the children than the man.

“So, when you educate a girl you are equipping her to be able to nurture your generation yet unborn. There are few times when you see an educated woman raising an uneducated child. She inspires a nation. When you educate a woman, you make her become confident and strong individual and thereby changing the nation”.

She added that girl child education is something every Nigerian should take very serious in country, even engaging them with technology.

Meanwhile, Alade-Omoekpen, listed topic to be covered during the six-week iCamp to include, graphics, drawing, animation, digital story-telling, entrepreneurship, and project.

“We were focusing on Nigeria’s environment; meanwhile, our first registrants are from the United States. They watched the few minutes video on YouTube and were captivated by what they saw.  We are expecting more international participants now.

“The reason for the choice of topics is that they are the basics. For instance, the graphics help children tell stories about that are happening around us. They can draw; it is the simplest way for a child to create something.

“We should go beyond using technology. We are so used to using it; however, no matter how small our children are they can create something. For instance, the BringBackOurGirls protests, we turned it into story telling graphics and likened it to a rat trapped in a house. Anybody who views it feels touched and tells why everybody should be concerned about the security situation in our country,” Alade-Omoekpen noted.

She said the programme will not thrive without sponsors hence they are open to sponsorship, adding that the summer programme will also involve children at their different homes and locations.

She also lamented that lack of internet access is a foreseen impediment which prompted why they want to partner with willing private schools to bring the platform closer to the students, while public schools are not excluded.