The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin, has in partnership with Helping Africa Foundation, inaugurated an ultra-modern ICT laboratory known as the Yamoransa Model Lab programme for the people of Kaleo and environs in the Nadowli-Kaleo District.

The project was funded by the Speaker and would serve as a centre for modern technology and resources to boost students’ innovation, smart learning, creativity, research and leadership potential.

The lab is expected to serve about 5,000 students from Kaleo and its environs and is equipped with 36 laptops, two halls, a conference room, marker space for robotics learning and a 3D printer.

The Yamoransa Model Lab programme is an initiative introduced by Helping Africa Foundation to provide students from deprived communities with an opportunity to expand their education on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM).

The Kaleo lab is the 14tth to be inaugurated in 13 of the regions in the country since its inception in 2016.

Speaking at the inauguration, Mr Bagbin charged the community, especially the committee charged with the management of the centre to take good care of it and ensure that all the students from the district benefited from it.

He said the use of the centre would be at no cost to the students, as the managers would be supported for the next two years to run the place.

As such, he said no one should be denied the opportunity to use the place due to financial challenges and anyone caught charging students for the use of the facility would be dealt with.

He implored traditional leaders not to try to intervene when that situation arose “because I would not listen to you.”

Impact

Mr Bagbin said the impact of the Yamoransa Lab 14 would not be felt in only Kaleo but the entire district and beyond.

One of the computer rooms at the lab

“This Lab 14 is going to make a great change to our lives. This lab would be instrumental in fostering sustainable development through education, technology and community engagements,” he said.

“This lab represents more than just bricks and mortar; it embodies the spirit of innovation and the promise of a brighter future. This is a lab where dreams will be nurtured, ideas will be cultivated and solutions to pressing challenges will be discovered,” he said.

Mr Bagbin, therefore, charged the students to take full advantage of the facility to dream big and succeed, as nothing was impossible.

Sustainability

The Deputy Executive Director of the Helping Africa Foundation, Jonathan Wisener, also entreated the community to take good care of the facility.

He described the lab as a legacy that had been bequeathed to the community and it thus behoved the community to maintain it.

He said while the developed world has an aging population, Ghana and for that matter, Africa has about 70 per cent of its population aged less than 30 and said this segment of the population ought to be educated and acquire skills that would serve the world.

He said the lab presented an opportunity for the youth to develop their skills to become relevant in the job market.