My Resolution for 2017 : Breaking the Wall of Digital Illiteracy
May 28, 2019
Story
On the second Sunday of every month, my peers and I attend a monthly women’s meeting in Bamenda town. For close to 6 years now, we have been coming together for this social gathering where we carry out many activities such as savings, thrift and loans, as well as discuss issues that happen around our community. This has created a forum where women in our community convene to share information about the ills that have occurred around our neighborhood in the past month, we also celebrate sister and mother hood and exchange ideas on how to safe guard ourselves and be watchful being the keeper of one another.
In this forum, I observed that all the women have advanced in one way of the other in the past years. 18 out of 25 women in this group are traders and they own a smart phones offered to them by their relatives or their husbands. Surprisingly, I have come to realize that these women are not using their phones to the fullest potential. Some of my sisters are ignorant and lack basic information on how to use their phones to change their lives and improve their standards of living. They don’t know the benefits of owning a smart phone especially using the internet to promote their economic activities. Most often they are on social media for communication, chatting and commenting about issues which will not really advance their career, cause a social impact or improve their business.
This new year will be a year of greater achievements, a time to reflect and take concrete actions with other of women in my community. I am poised to influence the highest paths forward for many women, with a vision to plant a seed of change by training as many young women as possible to gain digital literacy skills.
I am motivated to use my personal experience to inspire women to build a better future. I look forward to encourage them to be more ambitious, increasing their economic activities, making them financially stable, build self confidence andincrease their visibility. I want to get them to join the World Pulse platform which is proven to be a very supportive on line community for active members by making their voices heard. It will offer them the opportunity to share most of the inspiring stories we usually hear during our monthly meetings.
A lot of relevant information is usually shared from mouth to ear in small gatherings in my community, but the impact created and outreach is too limited. For example issues of rape, assault, violence, discrimination are discussed and the story ends there in the meeting house.
I am encouraged to break the wall of digital illiteracy, being the founder of “Centre for Youth Education and Economic Development” (CYEED), a grass root development organization serving as a community resource center for technical training and education working to empower youths especially girls towards achieving their development objectives. The general objective is to promote youth technical training for job creation and business expansion in order to ensure peace and security in the community by inspiring, motivating and lift women and girls forward.
My objective is to train women to use social media for branding and to grow their business networks. I intend to do a fund raising for this cause. CYEED has a computer lab in a comfortable and safe working environment where this training can hold. With your moral support and material donations, I envisage to carry out hands - on trainingin this computer lab, for these women to use digital tools with their smartphones and laptops to cause a change in their community. CYEED will make the use of digital tools more inviting and appealing for women to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation among women. http://www.cyeed.net/
When women will acquired the basic skills they need to make their voices heard, they will be able to share and relay information the right places. I strongly believe that when I begin in the groups I belong, I will be able to attract more women and together we will replicate this initiative in the many other women groups and associations to make a real difference in driving advancement toward digital literacy for development.
Your donations will go a long way to bring digital skills to women across Cameroon, particularly in underserved and hard to reach communities that have access to internet. Help us to ring the New Year with a gift that can help us give women skills they’ll need to peruse 21st century opportunities.
Digital fluency will help to level the playing field between men and women at work. They will attain higher levels in business, and help women advance at work. Investing in education and technology (ICT) would empowerthese women and improve upon their socio economic status.
It will also contribute in inspiringwomen and girls to discover a passion in technology inspiring them to see themselves not just as users of technology, but as inventors, designers, builders and entrepreneurs in the industry.
Together women can break the wall of digital illiteracy and be bold enough to act beyond existing predefined parameters and traditions. Ladies, let’s go out and make a change we want to see. Hand in hand, we need to become active knowledge and technology developers and sharers.
