Worldpulse Gave me a chance to join Digital World

In 2015 my life had just come to a standstill, from the bottom of my heart I knew it was time for me to make some changes, to cross some bridges and to start impacting lives. Had worked in cooperate world for thirteen years ,five in health sector and seven in banking sector but it had gotten to a point that I felt I was only working for a living. I needed to at least address some social challenges communities face, but for some reasons I was stuck. There were so many questions that were running in my mind. Where do I start? How do I reach out to the community? Where do I get to find other people doing it out there? How will I be able to sustain myself if I was to leave employment? among many other questions that were instilling fear on me on every step I wanted to take.

I started searching the net on social impact programs and I come across Ashoka.I enrolled and as I was interacting with my fellow scholars I come across a certain profile from a lady in Nigeria and she had mentioned that, she is part of a community called World Pulse .I become curious and I went looking for World Pulse on the web, that was in August 2015.I joined the community but I was still very green, few things caught my attention though. I found people writing their stories and I was like Wow. This was the first time had joined a community where people where sharing about themselves. I kept on following what was happening though I didn't understand much then.

In June 2016 World Pulse advertised a Digital Change making 101 online course ,I got an opportunity to be part of it. I must say that was my turning point. By the time the course ended I gained a lot of confidence, I had started believing in myself and I was ready to go out there and start off my journey of change making. In fact that was my first time to share my story, I imaged that to be the most difficult thing, but through the help of that course I did it and it felt good. For the first time in my life I felt like something had been lifted from my shoulders.

My biggest challenge before this course was digital literacy, I had very little knowledge about it and by extension I perceived Digital world as "Men Thing “have never felt like its anything that a woman can do. This training was an eye opener for me and have never looked back ever since. I remember after the training Maya invited us for a Zoom chat and honestly I was so scared ,had never had an online meeting before after all, I knew nothing about it, I almost felt like sinking when I saw all those faces on Zoom. I look back now and laugh about it but at the same time feel a lot of pain when I imagine how many women out there who still doubt themselves, feel like digital literacy is a man thing and as result they miss opportunities while they exist all around us.

In April 2017 World Pulse in conjunction with Women Alliance gave me among other women an opportunity to facilitate a world pulse projectto provide digital literacy training for women. It’s amazing that I was able to reach out to over 50 young girls and women and train them. I have attached one of the photos during the training. What kept running in my mind during the entire period of the project was...”what if I never took action”, “what if I got scared of change and remained in employment” will I have gotten an opportunity to help someone….??

As I conclude I will say I ,am grateful to you World Pulse for giving me an opportunity to first accept myself the way I was, with all the limitations that I had and secondly helped me build confidence to take action. Today am a founder of Abetec Business Solutions a social enterprise where we mentor and coach young girls and women on entrepreneurship, personal development and Digital literacy. I feel Bold and Limitless and am happy to be part of World Pulse Community.

Kind Regards

Betty Mbithi