By Shey Godbless
Persons living with Disabilities (PWDs) who attended the three day capacity building seminar for Regional and Divisional Delegates as well as personnel of state agencies in the North West Region recently organised by the National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ANTIC) have described the seminar as successful while expressing the wish for more.
The PWDs have noted that it was not just the inclusive nature of the seminar that made them happy, but also the outcome per their positions in society which is often neglected by many seminar organizers in the country.
According to Ngum Veronica who is a leader of a group of women living with disabilities, the three days were life transforming for people living with disabilities as far as the subject matter was concerned. She indicated that people living with disabilities had enormous challenges in accessing the internet and generally the digital world based on the diversification of their different forms of disabilities.
“My being here for three days is a kind of transformation. I have learned about cybercrimes, cyber bullying and other important topics that have transformed my mind.” Ngum said
She insinuated that her challenges were going to be resolved, for she now has basic knowledge on cyber bullying, how someone’s digital space can be hacked and much more. As a group, Ngum hoped to ensure that the message went far upon her return.
“Going back home I hope to replicate this knowledge in the community of people living with disabilities. My focal point will be women who are the most vulnerable.” Ngum Veronica added
On her part Benedicta Veuche another woman living with disability was glad to go home with the acquired knowledge. This was going to help protect her laptop and telephones from cyber criminals. Apart from that, she expressed joy of being opened to accessing information which is the key;
“First, information is the key on how we can build our capacity on how to use these gadgets and protect it from hackers from coming in to hack our information and our wealth. When we go back we are going to build capacities of persons living with disabilities, build our organizations and see how we can protect our computers and equally file our documents properly for good results.” Benedicta Veuche noted
Notwithstanding this, she believes if many more delegates were invited to attend such seminars especially people from organizations with persons living with disabilities, the message will go far fast and wide;
“In the next workshop we should invite more delegates from organizations of persons living with disabilities to build their capacities so that jointly we can continue to build capacities of other persons living with disabilities,” Benedicta Veuche concluded.
According to the General Manager of ANTIC, Prof Ebot Ebot Enaw, government has taken steps at making Cameroon's cyberspace safe and secured. These steps amongst others include enactment of the law on electronic communications and that on cyber security and cybercrime in December 2010. The law empowers ANTIC to secure Cameroon's cyberspace via activities such as Computer Incident Response Team, security audits, cryptography and electronic certification and the management of internet resources.
Created in April 2002 by the President of the Republic, ANTIC is credited for identifying close to 30.000 vulnerabilities inherent in the information systems of audited organisations and recommendations formulated to correct them before they get exploited by cybercriminals. The Prof Ebot Ebot Enaw led institution has also identified over 6500 and closed over 4100 fake Facebook accounts used by unscrupulous individuals to scam uninformed citizens and much more.
