For many people who migrate across Sahara on that perilous journey to Europe, once they arrive alive and settle in their new life in so-called paradise, they forget about how they got there and fail or refuse to take tangible steps to discourage other young people from doing same.
This was not the story of a young man by the name Ousman Umar from Fiaso in the Bono East Region, who took that arduous journey in his teens from Ghana to find “greener pastures” in Spain, several years ago.
After struggling to educate himself, in Spain, he set up an NGO, Nasco Feeding Minds Foundation to serve as an African solution to solve Africa’s problem, starting from Ghana, with the goal of feeding the minds of the Ghanaian and African youth through digital education, thus bridging the digital divide and providing the youth in Ghana and eventually Africa an opportunity to improve their ICT skills and provide them with a fighting chance of success in any chosen field of study.
With our head office based in Barcelona, Spain, GBFoods’ senior leadership team heard his touching story and the efforts he was making in his own small way to stem the perilous tide of migration across the Sahara through providing the youth with an alternative to taking that dangerous journey where only 3% make it alive.
GBFoods believes there is a convergence of his and our goals. GBFoods as a food company has stepped up to support Nasco financially to setup two of such ICT centers in Fiaso and Techiman, in the Bono East Region of Ghana. GBFoods is excited to be supporting this initiative because these ICT Labs will help develop the skills of the young people of Fiaso and Techiman to close the knowledge gap between young people in rural areas and urban areas.
GB Foods Ghana is one of the important providers of food and nutrition to the dining tables of Ghanaians; we are the proud manufacturers of your favourite Gino tomato mix, Pomo Tomato mix, Gino Max seasoning tablet, Gino rice, and other food products.
At GBFoods, we have learnt over the years how special it is to enjoy good nutritious food and, even more importantly, how food can explain and strengthen our traditions, our culture, our roots and the richness of our land. Our purpose as a company of “Celebrating Local Flavors” means among other things, empowering local communities.
In our fast-growing global village, ICT literacy has become necessary and young people have become the center and drive for this vibrant industry, which is creating lots of decent, well-paying jobs. St Paul’s and St Francis RC cluster of schools in Techiman and Fiaso MA cluster of schools in Fiaso schools are the beneficiaries of these ICT laboratories.
On behalf of GBFoods, Ghana, we want to request of all stakeholders – the traditional authority, municipal government, educational authorities, teachers, parents and pupils, to make good use of this facility in order to gain the maximum benefit from these ICT labs for generations to come.
In a few years from now, we hope to see children from these towns start to code, build applications and manage digital portfolios. We look forward to the day when some of the big names in ICT will come from Techiman and Fiaso.
