MOBILE CAFE FOR RURAL WOMEN (2)

Mobile cafe for rural women advocacy training held in nine communities in both Lagos and Ogun states, Western Nigeria came to an end on December 19, 2019. It was a three months advocacy programme.

The Nine communities are:

Community Date Number of women

1. Ibasa Riverine Community October 15th, 2016 50

2. Ibeshe Riverine Community October 20th, 2016 80

3. Oko Agbon, October 27th, 2016 103

4. Ajangbadi November 4th, 2016 67

5. Ologbenla November 2nd, 2016 98

6. Imoore Riverine Community November 12th, 2016 52

7. Ijesha- November 26, 2016 57

8. Ijedodo- December 17th 2016 30

9. Iyesi Otta-Ogun state December 19th 2016 33

Total women trained: 570

Topics covered:

Introduction to basic computer

Importance of the internet Internet,

Navigation and search engine

Opportunities online

Logging into the internet

We decided to penetrate into the unreachable communities but the major obstacle was that there is no internet connection seven communities, in addition, in two communities, none of the participants has access to any computer at all. It was surprising to note that in some communities where there were more than 50 women in attendance, there were less that five women who have access to the internet or e mail address.

In some communities like Ibeshe riverside where there were Eighty women in attendance, none of the women have used a computer before and none has e mail address. In Imoore riverside, there were thirty women in attendance, only one of them have e mail address and it was the only community where we encountered women who had never touched a computer before the advocacy programme and our intervention.

Although, our organisation has agreed to continue working with all the communities after this advocacy programme, but the beauty of Imoore story is that, we have returned to the community to continue our Treasure skill acquisition training with the thirty women, because they are far behind their counterparts in accessing such social opportunities.

The major impact of the advocacy is that for the first time, most of the women had access to learning basic computer and they had exposure to some useful information about the available opportunities online. in addition, the opportunity allowed us to debunk the mindsets of majority of the women who believed that the internet is a dangerous place for women, this is because many of the women said that they were told that the internet is for women who expose their breasts, those who are into prostitution and men who are fraudsters.

Also majority of the women confessed that they did not know that facebook could be used for any other useful thing aside from showing pictures of people's achievement and display of affection between opposite sex. In the two communities where there was internet connection, willing women were signed up in either Yahoo or gmail. The major obstacle to the advocacy programme was the lack of cyber cafe in all the communities.

It was a handful of the women who has smartphone. Of all the five hundred and seventy (570) women, less than fifteen women use smartphone and none of them has access to a personal computer. We have committed to continue working in these communities, even after the Mobile cafe for rural women programme.

We have opened a secret page for the women, its Mobile cafe for rural women, our main disadvantage is that, it just unfortunate that they do not have access to cyber cafes in their communities, therefore, they will not be able to sign in as often as they would love to be online.