2016 ICT4D Conference

At a time when South Sudan is at a precarious crossroads between falling back in the perpetual conflicts of its past and taking the decisive steps to build lasting peace, the country's people have stark, often bleak choices. With a lack of stable educational and professional training, most young people have failed to get good jobs and stable forms of living; this has especially affected the girl child who is usually looked at as a source of wealth by her family members; and with the increasing cost of living, the girl child is also traded at a high price as if she were also a commodity in the market.

The #GOGirls ICT initiative is aimed at tackling the challenges that affect the girl child especially in the science related fields (Computer science, IT and Engineering). In primary schools, secondary schools and Universities girls tend to shy away from active participation in classroom activities and their performances are very poor. The number of school dropouts and early marriages are also high. There are also very few professionals who are girls in the science fields since most of them look at sciences as very difficult and only meant for the boys.

As a potential key element in the empowerment of the girl child in the field of science, we introduce #GOGirls ICT a mentorship program which trains and mentors girls at the University of Juba in the field of IT and computer science in areas such as; hardware and software maintenance, software development, Tech writing and blogging and public speaking. This program acts as a platform for the girls to learn new technologies and share their experiences with other girls at primary and secondary school levels.

In this proposal we shall introduce the challenges faced by the girl child in South Sudan that is early and forced marriages; poor performance and participation in school activities and assignments.
We will also present the #GOGirls ICT initiative and discuss the possibilities of this initiative addressing the above challenges.

Take-away Messages
Open knowledge and education through ICTs may help to address the challenges faced by the girl child of South Sudan.
The use of mentorship programs like the GOGirls ICT initiative can be a crucial factor for strengthening the girl child's empowerment.
Chain based trainings can be a good form of grasping 'hard to understand'