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READING MAKES A MAN- Medicine for the soul. ~Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes

When was the last time you read a book? Have you read anything from a book, poster, billboard, newspaper, magazine today? Was it interesting or boring? What did you learn from what you read? Did it inspire you to read more or just another read? "There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book" (Marcel Proust). And indeed no days of our adulthood when we spent with books can be compared with the days we spend with loved ones".

Most of us walk through this life without taking a glimpse at any book for so long. Fine, if you are an illiterate then you are pardoned. But many are literates and yet a whole year passes without a single glimpse through a book. The excuses are unacceptable, " I am very busy', my work takes a lot of my time, newspapers don't have much information, I listen to news on radio and TV and am OK etc. Yes you are OK because you have received the sensational news on air and it is enough. Which new word did you learn from the news you listen that will enlarge your vocabulary?.

Reading makes a man. “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” “Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.”  
These are quotes from George R.R Martins and Joseph Brodsky also says that “There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”  Harold Kusher then says that "I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense. According to Haruki Murakami "if you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking". You have to challenge yourself with exciting books, history books, books about culture, books about science, technology and many more for "Great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood"(John Green).

To Edward Morgan "a book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it. "No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books". ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Gilbert Highet describes postulates "These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. From each of them goes out its own voice... and just as the touch of a button on our set will fill the room with music, so by taking down one of these volumes and opening it, one can call into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space, and hear him speaking to us, mind to mind, heart to heart.
"Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one. ~Augustine Birrell. " Book Buying"
Good readers can understand the individual sentences and the organizational structure of a piece of writing. They can comprehend ideas, follow arguments, and detect implications. They know most of the words in the text already, but they can also determine the meaning of many of the unfamiliar words from the context - failing this, they can use their dictionary effectively to do so. In summary, good readers can extract from the writing what is important for the particular task they are employed in. And they can do it quickly!
Educational researchers have also found a strong correlation between reading and vocabulary knowledge. In other words, students who have a large vocabulary are usually good readers. This is not very surprising, since the best way to acquire a large vocabulary is to read extensively, and if you read extensively you are likely to be or become a good reader!

So if you want your child to be successful at school encourage him or her to read. Reading non-fiction in English is probably the most important, but English fiction and any reading in the mother tongue - if done extensively - will help your child develop the reading competence that is essential for academic achievement. (http://esl.fis.edu/parents/advice/read.htm)

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Real Opportunities Network ICT for girls program is to introduce girls to blogging, coding, website designing after learning the basic of ICT. This project is to erode the perception in our society that ICT is a man's area.

Many girls will find their niche if introduced to the real world of ICT instead of just using Microsoft word to produce data, but to know that there is more to enhance the chances to acquire better positions in the IT career opportunities available.

The target is girls between ages 8 -24. This is to liberate this group from the gender bias and the gender stereotypes that mitigate against females who pursue ICT and to set a foundation of girls who will take up ICT to another level.
It is seen as a male dominant area with only few females in Ghana showing interest in it. When girls get the opportunities to learn how create apps and be encourage to take up other software project, it will naturally help to remove the monster that put fear in girls taking up IT courses.