Women Literacy in a Digital World: How technology is transforming the lives of women and girls

Hello everyone, It’s my pleasure to wish every one of you a happy International Literacy day. Every year on 8th September, United Nations honors International Literacy day to remind International community of the importance of literacy for individuals, communities and societies and the need for intensified efforts towards more literate societies. While celebration of Literacy take place all around the world, I have decided to celebrate it right here on worldpulse by sharing with you on the topic: “Women Literacy in a Digital World: How technology is transforming lives of women and girls”. As everything now is just a click away, I consider it so timely that this year’s Literacy theme is “Literacy in a Digital World”. Of course as an education and technology professional this is a topic closer to my heart.

Increasing technology are vital in education and business but women in sub-Saharan African are disproportionally left behind in accessing the internet and the benefit it holds. A report stated that “the difference in sub-Saharan Africa internet gender gap is 30 million. Only 40 million women in sub-Saharan Africa have access to and use of internet compared to 70 million men.

While literacy for its own is empowering, women literacy is closely tied to important development goals. Women literacy is especially powerful - it strongly correlates to better economic opportunities and health advancement when women become able to read about job opportunities, sanitation, medication and reproductive health and hygiene.

To reap the social and economic benefits of increased literacy among women, the internet must be use as a tool to improve access for women and girls. Worldpulse through the Women and the Web Alliance project in its effort of investing in accelerating closure of gap in technology and career path, has partnered with organizations like Girls Education Mission International in doing just that- empowering more girls and women to use technology, connecting them to economic opportunities and social opportunities and inspiring them to become innovators.

Cultural norms, high level of illiteracy and low accessibility and availability of information and communication technology infrastructure are major barriers to technology access and use for women around the world.

In Nigeria and in context of the Worldpulse Women and the Web Alliance project, Girls Education Mission International is working further in scaling up its digital empowerment program by integrating the Intel 'She Will Connect' into its Education and empowerment activities to make the Internet more accessible, relevant and engaging for girls and women, specifically those between the ages of 12-25, who comprise a large and growing population lacking opportunities for employment and skills development. Key pillars of the GEM’ Digital empowerment program include:

• Integration of digital literacy into the GEM’s education and empowerment programs to enable women access hardware, software, internet connectivity and ongoing support.


• Connecting women and giving them a global voice through the power of digital media.


• Increasing the economic opportunities for women and girls in ICT -enabled skill training, employment, online work or improved businesses through the use of internet.


• Creating a movement to address the challenges of the Internet gender gap by building, fostering and collaborations with partners.

The digital empowernment program of Girls Education Mission International will help in transforming the lives of girls and young womenby leveraging further the Women and the Web Alliance project activities. This involves:

• Making digital empowerment centeravailable to communitiesspecifically targeting young women and girls between ages 12-25.

• Implementing and scaling the Intel® Learn Easy Steps training (She Will Connect) program into the GEM empowerment programavailable for access to women and girls, both in the training and in becoming trainers of others.

• Developing an innovative approach to delivering digital literacy skills by integrating a global social network of women as Worldpulse into the Digital empowerment training process.

• Implementing an android app education in conjunction with Andela and Technovation to enable more girls to participate and gain skills in compelling and engaging ways.

• Integrating the trained girls and women into GEM’s programs.

Watch out for the Girls Education Mission International's soon-to-be-launched Digital empowerment program

Happy International Literacy Day!

Keturah Shammah

Executive Director

Girls Education Mission International