Marginalized communities in Garissa, Wajir, Turkana and Elgeyo Marakwet are set to benefit from a digital skills training programme aimed at enhancing digital inclusion among marginalized communities.
The programme is targeting women and girls, senior citizens, smallholder farmers, and persons with disabilities to digitally empower them and ease access to digital services.
The three-year initiative dubbed Digitally Enabled Gender Equity and Social Inclusion for Disadvantaged and Excluded Communities in Kenya (DEGESI) will be implemented by the African Centre for Women, Information, and Communications Technology (ACWICT) with support from UK Government Digital Access Programme (UK DAP) and the Semi – Arid Resilience Network (SARN).
Speaking during the inaugural meeting of the programme in Garissa, the Head of Programmes at ACWICT Merciline Oyier said that the project would help in bolstering social economic empowerment among digitally excluded persons in the country.
“We are doing the digital skilling for citizens to be able to bolster the socio-economic empowerment for the communities that are excluded from the mainstream spaces so that they can access digital services,” Oyier said.
“We are giving preference to young women, smallholder farmers and those in the boda boda sector because as you know, these sectors provide many employment opportunities for many of us and yet they do not have the skills to enable them to optimize on the opportunities presented by the digital structures,” she added.
Oyier said that apart from being able to access government services on the e-citizen portal, the beneficiaries would gain the capacity to leverage on digital resources for improved livelihoods, and contribute to the national digital economy.
“We are hoping to create digital employability opportunities for high potential young women and vulnerable girls by training 5,000 youth aged 18 to 34 years with foundational and basic ICT skills who will in turn cascade the skills to 200,000 citizens across the four counties, and create awareness on digital developmental benefits to 5 million citizens nationwide,” she said.
“By providing these skills, we will be enhancing access to government services in a safe and secure environment, fostering gender equity and promoting social inclusion leading to improved incomes, food security, livelihoods and alleviation of socio-economic disparities,” she added.
Garissa acting County Commissioner Sebastian Okiring called on the stakeholders involved to not only concentrate on major towns but also go deeper into the interior parts of the counties and reach to the young people living there.
“This Digifest is not just an event but a platform for change and an opportunity for residents to learn, connect and access vital digital services all in one place. I hope this is not just for today but something we have to keep in our communities so that it can help our people thrive,” Okiring said.
The Secretary for the Garissa Farmers Network Ebla Dagane Hassan said that access to markets for the local farmers has been a challenge but leveraging on the market driven digital skills, they would be able to reach a bigger target for their produce.
“The biggest issue we have is the market for our produce. You know, even before growing the crops, we have to ask ourselves who will be the target market and this has been a challenge,” Ebla said.
“With an opportunity like this to acquire new skills, I think we are going to start moving into the digital platforms and embrace ecommerce such that if we develop our website, we will be able to reach or expand our market and most importantly, align our prices to other markets,” she added.
By Erick Kyalo
