Education Ghana Project #72415

Coding & Digital Skills for 1,000 Girls in Ghana

by IT FOR YOUTH GHANA FOUNDATION

Coding & Digital Skills for 1,000 Girls in Ghana

Project Report | May 1, 2026
From Classrooms to Code - Girls Rising Up

By Betty Obour | Programs Coordinator

JHS Graduates Coding Program

See girls building their first web projects

"She had never touched a laptop before. By the end of the program, she was presenting her own web project to an audience, and telling everyone she was going to study Computer Science."

The Moment That Showed Us This Works

That quote is from a facilitator describing one of the young women who came through our August 2024 Frontend Coding Program for Senior High School graduates, a program that ran for two months in partnership with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and GIFEC, supported by two Municipal Assemblies. She had enrolled with no technology background. She left with a project, a presentation, and a changed sense of what was possible for her.

That is exactly what the Coding & Digital Skills for 1,000 Girls in Ghana project exists to replicate, at scale, in communities across the country.

What We Have Already Done — Proof the Model Works

While fundraising has been underway, our team has not waited. Using our organizational resources and volunteer network, we have been actively building the evidence base and infrastructure that will power this project when full funding is secured.

August 2024 — Frontend Coding for SHS Girls

In partnership with GES, GIFEC, and two Municipal Assemblies, we ran a two-month hands-on frontend coding program for Senior High School female graduates. Girls with zero technology background learned to build websites, develop digital projects, and present their work competitively. The results exceeded our expectations:

Girls with no prior IT interest went on to enroll in IT and Computer Science programs at university, a direct, measurable shift in educational trajectory
Participants built and presented their own web projects at a closing competition, demonstrating real, functional technical skills
The safe, female-centred learning environment built confidence as much as competence

September 2024 — Digital Skills for JHS Graduates

We extended the same model to Junior High School graduates just one month later, reaching approximately 200 young women with foundational digital skills training. This confirmed that the demand for this kind of intervention extends well beyond senior secondary level, and that our facilitation approach works across different age groups and learning backgrounds.

October 2025 — Women in Tech / UI/UX Program

Most recently, we delivered a Women in Tech program in partnership with five universities — UCC, KNUST, UEW, ATU, and GTCU — training 86 female participants in UI/UX Design. The program was facilitated by a specialist volunteer from Prime Academy, our partner organization in Germany, and was delivered both in-person at ATU and online, ensuring accessibility for participants across multiple locations.

86 women. 5 universities. International expertise. Hybrid delivery. This is what the 1,000 Girls project will look like at full scale.

What Your Support Will Unlock

Everything we have done so far has been delivered through our own organizational capacity, partnerships, and volunteer networks. With donor funding, we will:

Establish Girls Coding & Digital Skills Clubs in schools and communities across Ghana
Provide laptops, internet access, and structured curriculum to girls who currently have none
Train facilitators and onboard women mentors from industry and our alumni network
Reach girls in rural and underserved communities who could never access in-person training otherwise
Move from 286 girls reached through our own resources to 1,000 girls with dedicated support

A Message from the Field

"When we tell girls that coding is for them too, we see something shift in their eyes. They stop seeing technology as something that happens to other people. They start seeing it as something they can do. That shift — that is what we are raising funds to multiply."

Next Steps

Over the coming months we will be finalizing club locations, onboarding facilitators, and launching our first formally funded cohort. Every donation — no matter the size — brings us one step closer to 1,000 girls who will learn to code, build, and lead in Ghana's digital economy.

Thank you for believing in this vision. We will continue to share updates as we grow.

Project page: globalgiving.org/projects/coding-and-digital-skills-for-1000-girls-in-ghana

Website: www.itforyouthghana.org

SHS Coding Camp Program

A girl happy to make her first code

Building the next generation of Tech Leaders

Female University Non-IT students in Training

Links:

See what happens when girls get access to tech in Ghana

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Jan 23, 2026
Laying the Foundation: Institutional Partnerships and Pilot Trainings for Girls' Digital Skills

By Peter Duodu | Project Lead / Program Coordinator

Every impactful project begins with careful groundwork. Over the past reporting period, our focus for the Coding & Digital Skills for 1,000 Girls in Ghana project has been on building strong institutional partnerships and testing our training model to ensure quality, relevance, and sustainability.

We are pleased to report that we have successfully entered into working arrangements with institutional partners, including partner universities, who share our commitment to improving digital access and skills for young girls. These partnerships are critical to the long-term success of the project, as they provide safe learning environments, technical support, and mentorship pathways for participants.

As part of this preparation phase, we conducted pilot digital skills training sessions with partner universities. These pilot sessions allowed us to test our curriculum, training approach, and facilitation methods. The feedback received has been highly encouraging, confirming both the demand for digital skills among young women and the relevance of our practical, hands-on learning model. Lessons learned from these pilots are now being incorporated to strengthen the full rollout of the Girls Coding & Digital Skills Clubs.

While the formal club sessions have not yet commenced, these early activities ensure that when implementation begins, it will be well-structured, impactful, and scalable. Establishing partnerships and validating our approach before expansion is a deliberate strategy to maximize outcomes for the girls we serve.

On the fundraising side, we have officially launched on the GlobalGiving platform and have so far raised USD 70. Although this is an early stage, it marks an important first step in mobilizing resources and building a community of supporters who believe in digital inclusion for girls in Ghana.

We are deeply grateful to our early donors and supporters. Your contributions are helping us move from planning to action—ensuring that when the clubs officially launch, they will deliver meaningful, life-changing digital skills to girls who need them most.

We look forward to sharing updates as we begin club implementation, onboard participants, and expand our reach toward empowering 1,000 girls with coding and digital skills.

Links:

https://itforyouthghana.org/

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