Afoako Integrated Community Centre for Employable Skills (ICCES) started as a single classroom in Jakobu, a town near Ashanti Bekwai. Ed,mund Pinto (Eddie), the centre manager, had worked hard to expand the ICCES and when James visited in 2009, they had moved to a new building out of town which now boasted 3 classrooms. James was there to help build a girls hostel so that students were able to stay at the ICCES rather than walk for several hours a day. However, it quickly became obvious that there was also a need to equip the ICCES with computers – it may seem difficult to believe, but students were being taught ICT using a blackboard.
It took a while to set up a computer lab. The first step was to build a fit-for-purpose classroom, with The Turing Trust funding the materials and the students and their teachers providing the labour. The photos below date from 2013 and show the computer laboratory under construction.
The fully equipped computer laboratory was officially opened in 2015 – to the great delight of the students and the local community.
Since then it has been a showcase for the other ICCES in the Ashanti region. The computer lab is used not only by the students at Afoako, but also to host meetings and training days for the whole region.
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Our work
Our community-owned, off-grid computer laboratory powered by solar energy and with low energy Raspberry Pi computers.
Our activities stem from our base in Edinburgh where we teach trainees how to refurbish IT equipment.
Since 2009 we have installed computers across the continent with a several partner organisations.