Accra, March 12, 2021 – Female managers of Vodafone Ghana, led by the Chief Executive Officer, Mrs Patricia Obo-Nai, have held a training/mentorship programme for girls to equip them with skills on website development.
The participants; tertiary education students and basic school pupils, were also taken through coding, robotics and basic electronics.
The training formed part of the outlined activities on the calendar of Vodafone Ghana Foundation to join the rest of the world to celebrate the 2021 International Women’s Day.
It was also an initiative by staff of Vodafone Ghana, born in March, to touch lives in the telecom company’s monthly initiative dubbed: “Birthday Stars”.
Mrs Obo-Nai asked the students to appreciate customers as owners of businesses or employees, saying: “If you disagree with them, disagree but do it respectfully.”
“Sometimes the people you are appointed to head are the ones who will teach you in an organisation. So if you go there with an arrogant spirit, you will not know anything. But if they see that you respect them, they will open up and teach you so much,” she said.
She asked them to know their trade by reading and acquiring more knowledge about their work to win the respect and cooperation of other staff.
Mrs Geta Striggner-Quartey, the Director of Legal and External Affairs, Vodafone Ghana, advised the students to learn to be versatile and try to acquire knowledge from every field they had interest in.
She asked them to be visionary and have a goal, while adopting proper ways to communicate, dress and present themselves well at the doors of vast opportunities.
“You must have a goal to build your development plan. It is also okay to have a flexible professional plan, which means you might be looking up for opportunities,” she added.
Mrs Striggner-Quartey urged the young ones to be ready to act with integrity and regard the code of ethics governing the profession they wanted to pursue in order to excel.
She asked them to identify their weaknesses and strive to overcome them.
Mrs Angela Mensah-Poku, the Director, Digital Transformation & Commercial Operations, Vodafone Ghana, speaking on the usage of social media, said it was a double-edged sword that people could use to either gain or lose something valuable in life.
She cautioned the students to be cautious with how they portrayed themselves on social media, saying it could be detrimental to their future careers if those images were negative and indecent.
“If you come to people like me for job opportunities or mentoring, I will go to check your social media handles to see if you are a serious person. So make sure you use social media well to seek knowledge and open job opportunities for yourselves,” she said.
Mrs Mensah-Poku also entreated the young ones who had interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related careers to play with their phones and the internet responsibly to learn faster.
Ms Tawa Bolarin, the Director of Vodafone Business, said technology provided innovative ways to find solutions to problems.
She urged the young people to use their time judiciously and work hard to produce quality products and services for clients.
“Even if you are the owner of the business, show up at work like an employee who is being paid part time allowance and work as if you have a boss who doesn’t like you and wants an opportunity to fire you,” she said.
Mrs Hannah Ashiokai Akrong, the Director of Human Resources, entreated the youth to learn to do everything in business right from the grassroots to the top.
“Don’t be alarmed when you haven’t identified a career path yet. Just find what you are passionate about and start to do something on it,” she said.
She urged them to volunteer in organisational work to earn them experiences or job opportunities.
GNA