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Women entrepreneurs
at a Fish Market |
The ‘Reaching the Un-reached’
program is ACWICT’s flagship program. It is a community
based capacity building initiative that aims at equipping
women and women entrepreneurs in rural and urban communities
in Kenya with ICT and entrepreneurship within five thematic
areas of national priority namely agriculture, livestock,
trade, fishing, and tourism.
The training is delivered through Community Technology Learning
Centres (CTLCs) established in Kisumu, Isiolo, Busia, Nairobi
and Suba Districts. The CTLCs also provide access to ICT
infrastructure and services for the program beneficiaries
and promotes regional technology literacy.
The ICT training is delivered using Microsoft Official Academic
Curriculum (Unlimited Potential) which comprises basic computer
skills, spreadsheets, Internet, digital media, web design,
word processing, presentation and database management. .
The overall goal of the ‘Reaching the Unreached’
program is to empower women, improve lives, create and sustain
wealth and broaden digital inclusion in Kenya. The program
targets to train a total of 18000 women entrepreneurs and
to set up community technology learning centres countrywide
in the next three years. To-date, the program has trained
600 women and has impacted 4200 indirect beneficiaries.
Once trained, the women entrepreneurs are linked to government-sponsored
Women and Youth Enterprise Funds that are geared towards
boosting the capital base of enterprising women and youth.
There already exists partnerships opportunities with Micro
Finance Institutions like K-rep Bank with a view of connecting
beneficiaries to financial resources. In addition, the women
are assisted by linking them to other resources and opportunities
such as information on business start-up ingredients, expansion
into newer markets and job opportunities, legal information
and access to mentors
The women with entrepreneurial skills will be helped to
develop business concepts that will translate into concrete
business plans that are viable for financing. Other skills
will include legal aspects of business creation, record
keeping in small businesses, principles of self employment,
and negotiation and communication skills among others.
In July 2007, ACWICT entered into a two-year partnership
with the International
Youth Foundation aimed at scaling up the program to
target 1,200 young women graduates from universities and
middle level colleges, and high school leavers aged 18-35
years from six informal settlements in Nairobi and equip
them with ICT, entrepreneurship and life skills for employability.
The six informal settlements targeted under this partnership
are Kibera, Kawangware, Mathare, Mukuru, Korogocho and Kangemi.
The ICT skills training covers basic computer skills, spreadsheets,
digital media, web design, word processing, presentation
and database management; while the entrepreneurship course
content includes forms of business ownership, sources of
business ideas, roles of an entrepreneur, characteristics
of a business opportunity,
selection of suitable market, book-keeping and developing
business plans.
The life skills component, on the other hand, recognises
that the Kenyan education system focuses more on training
young people for academic excellence and pays little attention
to life skills, yet life skills are important in minimizing
the risks that limit opportunities for young women. The
young women are equipped with life kills training module
covers effective communication, conflict management, assertiveness,
decision making, teamwork and self management will help
them participate fully in their workplaces, communities
and society at large
New and promising business enterprises are provided with
incubation opportunities such as internet access, telephone
services, office space within the ACWICT community technology
learning centres, website hosting, typing services and printing
of business cards and publicity materials.
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