From Africa Recovery, Vol.13#4 (December 1999), page 25 (part of special feature on information technology)

Multimedia services in Cape Coast

Ghana has three community learning centres (CLCs) in Accra, Cape Coast and Kumasi, supported by the US Agency for International Development. The centres try to "demystify" computers and raise awareness, says Ms. Rose Bampo of the Cape Coast CLC.

It has six multimedia computers and offers training in word processing and database programmes, Internet orientation and touch-typing. It also disseminates health education materials from CD-ROMs. Operations began last July with a poster advertising campaign that drew students, mostly doing their project work and a little Internet browsing. Then the phone lines went down for a couple of weeks. But soon enough, more people in the community heard of the facility. The main targets are small-scale entrepreneurs. This involves "quite some work as most of them are uneducated."

The CLC tries to link up women traders with women's groups, and does interpretation for them. With the batik and tie-dye makers who buy their dyes mostly from Accra, "we want to help them take advantage of e-commerce opportunities. They can send e-mail to dye suppliers elsewhere who can supply them in bulk at lower cost."

From July to September, some 200 people came to browse the Web and a similar number used the e-mail services. Women make up only about a third of the clients. Some have husbands abroad and now use e-mail instead of expensive phone calls. With only six computers in the centre, people have to queue for hours. Ms. Bampo invites support from other donors so that some computers can be set aside for more Internet users while other computers are used for training other users.

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