Garissa: 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.
According to Kenya News Agency, the three-year initiative, 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 the 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, stated that the project would help in bolstering social economic empowerment among digitally excluded persons in the country.
Merciline Oyier emphasized the importance of digital skilling for citizens to bolster socio-economic empowerment for communities excluded from mainstream spaces. The focus will be on young women, smallholder farmers, and those in the boda boda sector, which provide numerous employment opportunities but lack the necessary digital skills.
Additionally, Oyier highlighted that besides accessing government services on the e-citizen portal, beneficiaries would gain the ability to leverage digital resources for improved livelihoods and contribute to the national digital economy. The programme aims 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. These trained individuals are expected to cascade the skills to 200,000 citizens across the four counties and create awareness of digital developmental benefits to 5 million citizens nationwide.
Garissa Acting County Commissioner Sebastian Okiring urged stakeholders to focus not only on major towns but also on reaching young people in interior parts of the counties. He described the Digifest as a platform for change and an opportunity for residents to learn, connect, and access vital digital services.
Ebla Dagane Hassan, Secretary for the Garissa Farmers Network, noted that access to markets has been a challenge for local farmers. By leveraging market-driven digital skills, they hope to reach a broader target for their produce. Hassan expressed optimism that acquiring new digital skills would enable farmers to embrace e-commerce, expand their markets, and align their prices with other markets.