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.