Data-Lead Africa, a consulting firm, has trained 20 hearing impaired children on various digital skills in the FCT.
The organisation said this at the graduation ceremony for the participants of its Summer Boot Camp tagged Digits and Signs for Deaf Kids, in Abuja.
Ms Ojone Akor, Programs Manager and DEI Coordinator, Data-Lead Africa, said the four the week-long boot camp focused on improving the digital skills of the children.
She said the training focused on creating change in the deaf community by introducing the participants to cross-cutting issues around inclusion and social initiatives.
She said that the training focused on improving the IT skills, knowledge of mathematics as well as programming skills of the children to equip them for the future.
“When we started, we noticed that some of them struggled with things like greater than and less than, two-digits addition, they also had no experience using computer, but we have been able to educate them on these things.
“I am very much excited about the fact that we have been able to empower the deaf kids through digits and signs programme on the use of mathematics and computer in this digital age.
“For the digit and signs programme, this is our pilot programme as we wanted to see how we will reach out to deaf kids and how we will be able to empower them and catch them young.
“So we partnered with the Abuja School for the Deaf and we got the participants to come in for the training, so subsequently, we will be organising more programmes like this and increase the number of participants to be able to reach out to as many as possible,” she said.
Akor said that the organisation would be deploying some of its trainers to follow-up with the children and mentor them for the next six months, in a bid to improve their academic performance.
“We are in a digital age and everything is driven by data and everything you are doing is driven by IT and information, so being able empower them while they are young is a thing of joy to us.
“We have modern aid tools used for analysis, programming among others, so bringing these children into this type of training gives them an edge among their peers,” she said.
Also speaking, Mr Bamidele Olaitan, the Assistant Head Teacher of Abuja School for the Deaf, appreciated the organisation for the training, adding that the new skills learnt would place them aper with their peers in other climes.
“Engaging the children during this holiday is a kudos to the organisers and I know that what they have learnt today will be meaningful to their future.
“This is not about learning it alone, they can as well practice it, especially the less privileged among them loves any thing that has to do with skill acquisition.
“I believe that what this organisation have done for them will not be the end of it, we will want to have more partnership with them so that they can train more students during their long vacation,” he said.
Miss Gami Nanring, a participant who spoke through an interpreter, appreciated the organisers for the training, adding that her desire is to work as a computer technologist in the future.
“I always want to learn new things, all I need is to do more training and learn more things about computer and I know I can develop better.
“We were taught PowerPoint, Microsoft word and many more things, they made it more easy to understand and comprehend,” she said.
