With passion and enthusiasm to instill girls technologically for economic empowerment, National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) has partnered with Fair Allocation for Info Tech Resources of Denmark through the project, NICE Ambassador for Girls Empowerment (NAGE).
The project comes amid high rate early pregnancies and marriages among young girl in Malawi as formal education is unable to accommodate them for various reasons ranging from parenthood and poor education standards.
Since August, 2014, the project has graduated 15 girls equipped in computer studies which has able them to stand on their own, opening computer services bureau in some location in the capital Lilongwe where the project is being piloted.
Disclosing the NAGE’s launch which coincided with the commemoration of International Girl in ICT day in the capital Lilongwe on Thursday, Fredrick Ndala, Technical Advisor in the Ministry of Information, Tourism and Culture expressed optimistic that the project will changes many girls lives economically .
Ndala said the project has come at a right time when Malawi has a new Marriage, Divorce and Family relations Act which forbid the coercing young girls into marriage who are below the age of 18 as such they will be busy with their education.
“Nice and Fair signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to contribute to the strengthening of the democratic process and the increase of good governance in Malawi through Information Communication Technology (ICT) education towards girls who have been marginalised for some time now.
“This is a demonstration of Malawi government s commitment to the improvement of young women and girls’ lives. Therefore, the certificates obtained after ICT training is source of encouragement and inspiration to them and others to stay within the vicinity of the center to take advantages for more”, delighted Ndala.
Echoing on the same sentiment, Ollen Mwalubunju, NICE Executive Director said the project is expected to bankroll to other remaining centers across the nation where his organization operates saying girls will be supported technologically with training for economic empowerment.
“We want our girls to start standing on their own such that time for misconduct which lead to early pregnancies wont have a room with the coming of this project. We are expecting to roll out to all NICE centers that all girls should benefit from it. Therefore, its high time Malawians should embrace ICT courses as a source of employment especially among girls”, urges Mwalubunju.
In her remarks, Janet Banda, one of the NAGE Certificate awardees expressed gratitude for the skill acquired in the training saying will an able her to start her own communication centre in her area.
“I’m very delighted for the course as my life wont be same with skills obtained. I will open my own business which will generate money for my well-being . Therefore, I am appealing to other girls to enroll into these studies for better life”, urges Banda.
NAGE was created by NICE trust with the aim of intellectually, financially and emotionally empowering underprivileged young women raised in broken down communities by identifying ant knowledge gaps aimed at filling them through specialized training such as ICT.
While FAIR in this partnership is working to bridge the digital divided between countries that are technically more developed and those that are disadvantaged by lack of access to computer hardware.
Schools in recipient countries are provided with integrated and effective computer solutions for use in ICT classroom-based on open source software and refurnished hardware. FAIR is committed to find solutions where internet access is limited or un available.
