The International Telecommunications Union has inaugurated a digital literacy partnership with Philippine-based NGO, Telecentre Organisation foundation to train one million unskilled women on computers and modern information and communication technology applications, to improve their livelihoods within the next 13 months.

The Tide gathered that the new women’s digital literacy campaign would leverage the combined reach of telecentre organization foundation’s global network of 100,000 telecentres worldwide and ITU’s 192 member states and 700 sector members to deliver training in ICT use, following a ‘train the trainer’ model.

According to ITU Secretary-General, Dr. Hamadoun Toure, between 2011 and the end of 2012, training courses will be offered in at least 20,000 telecentres in countries around the world, each of which is expected to train at least 50 women for a total of one million women.

We hope this joint campaign with Telecentres. Org Foundation will have an enormous impact on improving the condition of women, wherever they may live, and whatever their circumstances.

“With technology now widely recognised as a critical enabler for socio-economic development, this campaign will further re-inforce ITU’s global efforts to promote the digital inclusion of women and will be a key element in achieving Millennium Development Goals on gender equality”, he said.

The Executive Director, telecentre. Org Foundation, Mr. Basheerhamad Shadrach, noted that offering digital skills to over one million women at the grassroots will help reverse the obtainable paradigm where technologies mostly benefit men more than women in many countries.

“These telecentre women, once trained, will help their communities to access local specific information, time-specific information, time-tested knowledge, market opportunities, enhanced skill for employment and productivity. They will importantly, participate in the modern knowledge era, not only as mere consumers, but also as providers and producers of knowledge asset”, he noted.

Under the term of the agreement, ITU and telecentre foundation are encouraging Federal Government, the private sector and other international organisation to contribute to the digital literacy curricula in local languages and to provide trainers and other resources to national telecentres.

Emmanuella Azubuike