Press
Release
Contact Karen Higgs
APC communications manager
Email: khiggs@apc.org
Tel: 00 - 598 - 2 - 400 6460 (GMT
-3)
Can Technology
Help Reduce Poverty? 2005 APC Hafkin Prize Winner Trains Kenyan Youth
for Business Opportunities
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa,
May 26 2005 -- For young people living in poverty in coastal
Kenya, surfing the internet and learning how to use computers
make most sense when these skills mean better economic opportunities and
work-readiness. In recognition of this, the Association for Progressive
Communications (APC) announced on May 26 that the winner of the APC
Africa Hafkin Communications Prize for 2004-5 is the "Global
Education Partnership - Wundanyi" in Kenya.
Global Education Partnership -
Wundanyi (GEP) is a not-for-profit organisation located in the Taita
Taveta District of Kenya. It has created a 12-week comprehensive
training programme that focuses on entrepreneurship and work-readiness
skills for local youth from 15 to 24 years. "A clear lesson is that
entrepreneurs are difficult -if not impossible- to create but they can
be identified and supported," GEP's East Africa Regional
Coordinator Tammy Palmer told APC.
Taita Taveta is one of the poorest
areas of Kenya with a poverty rate of 66% -- 10% higher than the
national average. The youth in Taita Tavet can see little on the
economic horizon that will offer them a viable livelihood. Access to
traditional livelihoods is fast shrinking and most residents are
subsistence farmers or squatters.
Over nine years, GEP has trained 948
students, with 944 completing the course, 113 being awarded business
capital, and 47 owning their own business. Students are asked to
contribute a "commitment" of Kshs 1000 (approximately $12.50
USD).
In recognition of their vision and
implementation, a six-member international jury awarded the Kenyans the
$7,500 USD award which is named in honour of Nancy Hafkin, a pioneer of
networking and development information and communications in Africa.
The Kenyan winners explained how
their initiative works: "Over the twelve weeks (of training)
students learn from entrepreneurship modules that focus on building
basic, but important, business development skills, such as costing goods
sold, calculating profit and loss, marketing, business plan development,
and inculcating social responsibility."
Students use work-readiness modules
to pick up office-related skills, and have information and technology
communication (ICT) components woven into the course components. They
learn software skills, learn to prepare financial spreadsheets, write
business plans and curriculum vitae and use the internet as a real-world
communication tool.
Students who create their own
businesses, are awarded with a select number of competitive grants
called 'venture capital funds' to invest in their nascent enterprises.
Nancy Hafkin, after whom the prize
is named, congratulated GEP as "an excellent example of a
locally-led initiative that is using information technology to give hope
and possibilities to the youth of rural Africa It is my hope that it
will be an inspiration to other community initiatives to provide
possibilities for economic self-sufficiency to the young people of
Africa."
New York-born Hafkin was among the
first to enter the field of electronic communications in Africa. Her
advocacy over more than two decades drew attention to the growing
potential of ICTs in Africa and the cost to Africa of remaining outside
the process of social and economic change brought about by the
development of the global information society.
Judges for this year's event were
ArabDev founder Leila Hassanin of Egypt; Internet Society (ISOC) South
Africa chairman Alan Levin; Canada's International Development Research
Centre (IDRC) programme officer Ramata Molo Thioune; parliamentarian
Johnson Nkuuhe of Uganda; UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)
officer Aida Opoku-Mensah and Digital Freedom Initiative in Senegal
director Fatimata Seye Sylla.
Judges comments on the
prize-winning entry ranged from "a fantastic effort",
"great achievements" to "very well-focused".
"What struck me about GEP is
the focus on youth empowerment, which is central to its strategy. ICTs
are not used for their own sake; they're integrated in a clear vision of
development," Ramata Molo Thioune told APC. As far as
sustainability is concerned, I think that it's an example of an
initiative from which many organisations may learn."
In addition to recognising
GEP, the judges awarded an honourable mention to BorgouNET in Benin, a
small West African country which is one of the most densely-populated on
the continent. BorgouNET has provided a number
of towns in North Benin with their only means of sending and receiving
email to and from the outside world, owing to the absence of
telecommunications infrastructures and the non-digitalisation of
telephone lines.
ABOUT THE APC HAFKIN AFRICA
COMMUNICATIONS PRIZE
The $7,500 USD APC Hafkin Prize - a
biennial award - recognises outstanding examples of African initiatives
in information and communications technology (ICTs) for
development. The Theme in 2004-5: Community initiatives that use
the internet and other digital communication networks to access markets,
skills and opportunities to derive real economic benefits.
Prize Winner - Global Education
Partnership - Wundanyi
The Hafkin Prize is supported
in part by the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC). Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
is one of the world's leading institutions in the generation and
application of new knowledge to meet the challenges of international
development. For more than 30 years, IDRC has worked in close
collaboration with researchers from the developing world in their search
for the means to build a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous
society.
ABOUT APC
The Association for Progressive
Communications (APC) is an international network of civil society
organisations dedicated to empowering and supporting groups and
individuals through the strategic use of information and communication
technologies, especially internet-related technologies. APC and its
members pioneer practical and relevant uses of ICTs for civil society,
especially in developing countries. APC is an international facilitator
of civil society's engagement with ICTs and related concerns, in both
policy and practice.
APC: http://www.apc.org
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