A new ICT Ac­cess Cen­tre has been opened in Cas­cade.

On Mon­day, the Cas­cade ICT Ac­cess Cen­tre, which is lo­cat­ed in­side the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, was opened.

It is the 15th ICT Ac­cess Cen­tre opened as part of a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion to pro­vide ac­cess to ICT-un­der­served ar­eas in Trinidad.

Min­is­ter of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, Has­sel Bac­chus, urged res­i­dents to take ad­van­tage of the pos­si­bil­i­ties avail­able at ICT Ac­cess Cen­tres as he list­ed the many ini­tia­tives and ac­tiv­i­ties that the Min­istry has de­liv­ered through ICT Ac­cess Cen­tres over the past 12 months.

These in­clude the Min­istry’s on­go­ing ICT Va­ca­tion Camp for pre­teens, teenagers, and se­niors and train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in ar­eas like func­tion­al dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy through part­ner­ships with the Youth Train­ing and Em­ploy­ment Part­ner­ship Pro­gramme (YTEPP).

He said, “ICT en­thu­si­asts in the area al­ready ex­pressed will­ing­ness to train and men­tor young per­sons in com­put­er and lap­top re­pair and re­fur­bish­ment,” he shared.

The Cas­cade ICT Ac­cess Cen­tre is equipped with ac­cess to Wi-Fi in­ter­net, desk­top com­put­ers, lap­tops, we­b­cams, head­sets, print­ing fa­cil­i­ties, and a mul­ti­me­dia train­ing room to fa­cil­i­tate learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties such as Span­ish-re­lat­ed tech­nol­o­gy lessons. It is al­so staffed by res­i­dents with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, and its en­vi­rons and who are fa­mil­iar with the needs, in­ter­ests, and spe­cial cir­cum­stances of Cas­cade, St. Anns, and Holo­lo.

The ICT cen­tre was chris­tened through an in­ter­ac­tive on­line game called Span­ish Jeop­ardy spear­head­ed by Mau­rice Joseph, a Dig­i­tal Learn­ing Fa­cil­i­ta­tor in the Per­for­mance and En­gage­ment Unit at the Min­istry. Res­i­dents gath­ered in the mul­ti­me­dia train­ing room to learn ICT-re­lat­ed Span­ish words via the game.

“I en­joyed learn­ing about tech­nol­o­gy in Span­ish, it in­spired me to want to learn more and I can see the ICT cen­tre hav­ing pos­i­tive ef­fects in my com­mu­ni­ty,” said Cas­cade res­i­dent Joshua Lei­th.