Projects
WHH Academy Vocational Computing Lab
When designing the physical facility, we wanted to include areas that could be used as community or classroom areas. On the top floor of the Home there are several rooms of various sizes that are airy, bright and wired for powering conference and computer equipment.
In this region of Ghana, there is a need for improving computer skills among students and adults, for both increasing job skills and for helping to address deficiencies in what is included in the curriculums at local secondary schools. We are moving forward with implementing some training classes that will help raise the skill level in the community and at the same time help to generate some income to be used toward the on-going expenses of the Children's Home.
During one of our earlier visits to Axim, we brought four new, small desktop computers and some networking components. Subsequently, we have received generous in-kind donations of several refurbished laptop computers. We have had no shortage of challenges with Internet access, reliable power, and extreme environmental conditions (i.e. heat and humidity). However, our initial group of 7 to 9 laptop computers are up and running in the smaller of the classrooms and we have one of the desktop computers up and running for use by WHH staff. This has proven invaluable as a tool for communication and budgeting for the WHH. Also, in 2009 the home now has hired Maxwell on permanent staff, a Ghanaian IT professional and teacher.
We have a philosophy of using only legitimate software on the computers at the Home and as such we have pursued and been fortunate to receive an in-kind grant from Microsoft of operating system, business and educational software for our use in Axim.
We are in the early stages of launching the training programs and will be steadily improving and growing the course content, the technical competancy at the home for keeping the computers running well and virus-free, increasing the number of students that we are able to accept, broadening the reach of the training across the Western Region, and increasing our collaboration with local secondary schools who have requested a close connection with our technical training programs.
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