Muckson Sesay 3

Muckson Sessay

Muckson Sesay immigrated to Canada after studying Computer Engineering in Turkey. In the summer of 2006, his family traveled from Canada to Sierra Leone to visit relatives & family members. During the short visit, he took the opportunity to visit tertiary institutions across Sierra Leone to give public interactive lectures on the importance of technology & education. This exercise exposed him to the painful truth about the educational system there. In one of the tertiary institution he visited, he walked into an empty room which was designated as a computer lab. The room had no electricity and no computer equipment. More disturbingly, he quickly learned that the entire computer department has never had electricity supply nor a single computer. Students in that department were taught to memorize computer parts & accessories. What he also found more disturbing is that students were paying for computer lab services that they never got to use.

Upon his return to Canada, he began buying refurbished computers & computers accessories from recycling companies in Winnipeg, fixing them & shipping them to equip the tertiary institutions he visited in Sierra Leone. 15 tertiary institutions across the country have benefited from this program. In 2007, He registered the Ishaak Muckson Innovative Technology Training Centre, IMITT, in northern Sierra Leone. This program trains secondary school students in MS office, A+, Network Plus+ and other essential IT skills. From 2006 to 2014, a total of 541 students have graduated from the College’s IT certificate programs, & many are currently employed in various IT related fields in the country. Wesley Penner, a businessman & former co-founder of Powerland Computers, a technology company where he used to buy refurbished computers in Winnipeg later became his friend & began giving him loans & funding to continue his work. In 2014, with the financial support of Wesley Penner, the Canadian College of Modern Technology, CCMT, was established in the remote community of Mile 91, in northern Sierra Leone. The college is now fully accredited to offer certificate, diploma and degree programs. In the past 4 years, the college has prepared infrastructure to a level that has allowed it to offer high-quality academic programs with student access to 24-hour electricity, internet, running water, modern classrooms and housing facilities for students & international faculty members. Poor quality of education in colleges there has led the upper-class families to send their children abroad for good education, thus leaving the other with no option but to send their kids to poorly equipped colleges. CCMT is now providing the alternative, allowing the middle-class families to send their children to a good and well-equipped college in Sierra Leone.

Equally so, offering scholarships for low-income families. The objective is not only to help the individual family but to help the country improve its intellectual capital, thus creates shared prosperity. In March 2018, Forty (40) students received undergraduate scholarships to study in various disciplines including Computer Science, Business Information Technology (BIT) and Mass Communication at the Canadian College of Modern Technology, Mile 91. The Sierra Leone Educational Partnership, Inc, SLEP, a charity organization based in Winnipeg where he works as the Director of Donor and Program Management, awarded the scholarships to the deserving students. The scholarship covers tuition fee, education material including personal laptop, hostels fee and campus meal.

~Muckson Sessay