Project stakeholders are guided through the evaluation using a slide presentation

A two-week participatory project review and evaluation of the reaching the un-reached employabilityprogramme that aims to improve the employability prospects of 1,200 women from Nairobi’s informal settlements over two years, was conducted between 13^th June 2008 and 4^th July 2008, led by a team comprising of five members of ACWICT staff.

The participatory project review and evaluation exercise produced a series of significant findings and conclusions concerning:

-The effectiveness of skills, offered in the Reaching the Un-reached training strategy, to make a change for the beneficiaries in the prevailing informal settlements in Nairobi.

-The effectiveness of the methodology applied in this employability program:

• As an empowerment tool for young otherwise un-empowered women in urban slums.
• As a practical means to foster a multi-organizational partnership by the organizations that had not been collaborating before.

Some of the major impact findings are:

(1) The employability programme, as implemented by ACWICT, causes important changes (i.e. impacts) in the personal and professional lives of beneficiaries. These changes concern not only the use of a computer and the use of internet for private and social reasons, but also the benefits of these skills and knowledge in occupational and professional contexts. E.g. in this study, a limited but encouraging number of beneficiaries reported a direct positive effect of the training on their employability, the quality of their jobs, or their business and their income.

(2) However, as a social development intervention, the programme offers a training curriculum of computer skills and knowledge which require additional conditions in order to be used effectively; these conditions concern availability, accessibility and affordability of computers, software and internet. In other words, the programme is not a ‘stand-alone’ development component, and its effectiveness will be greatly enhanced by integrating and adapting it to the specific social and economic development conditions of different categories of potential trainees and users.

(3) For computer illiterate trainees (i.e. the intended target group and, indeed, the overwhelming majority of the beneficiaries in this study), Reaching the Un-reached is much more than an introduction to some ‘fundamentals” of ICT knowledge and skills. The evaluation study indicates not only that the offered contents in seven packages require intensive training that can hardly be completed in a 60 hour course under the prevalent training conditions, but also that both content and time span should be adapted to the characteristics and needs of the specific categories of trainees.

(4) The study also identified a special need to scale up the program to cover more areas geographically, thus reaching more young women and to widen curriculum content to match up with the need of the prevailing job market

Furthermore, these evaluation findings and the lessons from the review experience generated a series of implications, recommendations and initiatives for follow-up action such as:

• ACWICT asked to conduct a meeting with the community mobilizers for acquitting better with them and lay strategies for further partnership.
• Employ usage of prominent personalities for activities or having to use prominent persons as face of the project
• Create signposts in strategic places for easy access to training centre especially at Methodist, Chiromo, and Dennis Pritt road.
• Create a database of community mobilizers
• Involve more women as community mobilizers especially in Kibera slum
• Make intensive use of religious organizations to reach to prospective beneficiaries
• Create opportunities for disabled persons to train in ICT
• The Ministry of Youth and Sports challenged to train youths on entrepreneurship before granting the youth funds.
• Make the use of youth officers available in the field not necessarily at the ministry level
• Scrap out the requirement of beneficiaries having attained high school level of education
• Encourage school drop-outs to take part in the ICT training
• Consider vocational trainings for primary school drop outs on handwork/artwork skills

The recommendations for ACWICT and its partners are enshrined in the above mentioned impact conclusions, implications and initiatives for follow-up. From the deliberations emerging at the exercise, it was apparent that the programme had achieved significant results. But also observed was that a number of recommendations were fronted to serve as entry points towards making the project better in order to serve the community satisfactorily. The participants indicated willingness to partner with ACWICT towards ensuring that the project achieves its intended goals.

Details / copies of the full Report can accessed at the ACWICT offices.