Church Donates High-Tech Computer Lab to Ghana University

Students, faculty and staff at the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD) in Somanya, in the Eastern Region of Ghana, celebrated the single largest donation in its brief history at a handover ceremony conducted on 29 January 2025. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated a complete state-of-the-art computer lab to help the university in its goal to produce professionals skilled in sustainable practices and technology-driven solutions in Ghana.

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UESD was founded in 2020 with a curriculum tailored toward environmentally sustainable practices and offers programs in areas like environmental science, water resources management, energy and sustainability, and climate change adaptation. These fields are increasingly reliant on new technologies, making graduates valuable for industries like renewable energy, waste management and agriculture. Recognizing a need for help in providing students with the technological resources needed for achieving its goals, the university reached out to the Church, which responded by providing 60 computing devices, 60 chairs, tables, two servers, a high-tech 86-inch interactive flat panel screen for instructors to use while teaching, cables, routers, switches, and everything else needed to set up the lab. Also donated were five air conditioning units to keep students and equipment cool in their new computer lab.

Professor Eric Nyarko-Sampson, vice chancellor for the university, expressed his profound gratitude for the Church's generous donation in his address during the handover ceremony.

"I must mention that in this ceremony, the university is receiving the single largest donation so far made by any individual or organization," he said. "We can’t express our heartfelt gratitude to you. On behalf of the management, staff and students of the university, we are glad to receive your donation. We also want to commend the millions of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have blessed us with their fast offerings. It is my wish, and I promise, that we will put this to a good use to the glory of God and for the advancement of our goals. I thank you."

Elder Samuel Annan-Simons, Area Seventy who presided at the handover ceremony, responded to the acknowledgment. 

"As a representative of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are very, very grateful as an organization for this opportunity to collaborate with the university to bring about the establishment and equipment of this ultra modern ICT lab," he said. "We’re very proud and we’re very grateful to have this honor to bring this about. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has consistently supported the people of this country and its institutions, and as was said by the vice chancellor, Professor Sampson, members of the Church across the world come together and provide the donation that will go to the funding of all these types of projects across the country. So all across the world, all our money is put together, and wherever we are, whatever community we are in, we see what needs there are and we use those funds to provide for the needs of that community."

Commenteing on the impact the Church's donation will have on the university's students, the university registrar declared, "On this remarkable afternoon, we gather to commission a transformative facility, the ICT Lab, generously sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Your presence here today symbolizes the fruition of a partnership rooted in trust and mutual aspiration. The ICT facility is a lab for the future. It is also a platform of opportunity for our students. By bridging the digital divide, you have empowered future leaders and thinkers who will shape our sustainable future. We thank you very much, and we know that this is just the beginning. God bless you."

Since its founding in 2020, UESD has grown from just over 300 students to more than 900 students focused on learning sustainable principles based on the university's H.O.P.E. core values of Honesty, Opportunity, Persistence and Enterprising, with the goal "to produce persons who have HOPE in themselves, exude HOPE and who are poised to give HOPE  to the world with their knowledge and work ethics."