EMMANUEL NLEWEDUM , Port Harcourt
The over three-year project tagged “Reducing Digital Gender Gap in Niger Delta” implemented by the Stakeholders Democracy Network, SDN, has ended with over 1,600 women from the region benefiting from various digital skills training and empowerment.
The project, funded by the European Union (EU), and implemented by SDN in collaboration with its partner, was carried out in four Niger Delta States of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States.
Speaking during the end of the project evaluation findings in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Deputy Programme Manager for SDN, Ifeoma Ndekwu, said the project was aimed at bridging digital gender gap in Niger Delta, empowering individual women, and women-led businesses with digital skills, secure and deliver gender friendly ICT policies across the four states, and as well enhance gender inclusive digital economy in the region.
Ndekwu who was the Project Manager for ‘reducing digital gender gap in Niger Delta project’ said the programme succeeded in training over 1,600 beneficiaries across the four states in digital marketing, digital networking, web development, data analysis, graphic design, among others digital skills.
Describing the project as a successful one, Ndukwe said virtually all drafted activities were implemented and outputs of the project were delivered.
She said, “The project, ‘Reducing Digital Gender Gap’ started in February 2022. Our target was to train 1,500 women, and deliver gender friendly ICT policies in four states namely; of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States, and also conduct a research to understand reducing the gender gap in Niger Delta.
“Drawing up this project, there was a lot of scepticism in including women in digital trainings, if they were either going to be serious, participate or utilise their skills, but I think we did a very good selection, we tried our best.
“Yes, its been months of implementation, team work and much effort that has brought us where we are today. We have successfully trained over 1,600 women who did not only acquire the skills, they are utilising the skills. I congratulate them and also encourage them to keep pressing and just ensure the sky will be their limit.”
Ndukwe added that, “Beyond the training, we ensured that these women utilise the skills they acquired, while improving their business outcomes by gaining jobs, getting better employment.
“Also, we have been able to support states in drafting ICT policies that are gender friendly, mainly in Delta and Bayelsa States. In Rivers State, we had a little glitch as a result of the emergency rule.
On his part, SDN’s Head of Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Chiekeze Okpara appreciated their partners for allowing and giving the beneficiaries a platform to carry out such trainings and mastering them.
Accessing overall performance of the project, he said, “All activities were implemented and the outputs were also good. We had almost 90% achievements of all our output targets, which is quite impressive of the project. Also, our outcomes were all tremendous and encouraging. We had success stories and changes that occured as a result of this project.
“The project intended to secure ICT policies across the four states, and as at this point today, wehave contributed to achieving that in Delta and Bayelsa States. In Rivers and Akwa Ibom we are still pushing to seeing those policies being drafted and also being gender responsive which is the aim of this project.
“For the digital skills, we recorded a lot of tremendous achievements, such as having a good proportion of our beneficiaries gain employment as a result of the empowerment they acquired from this project. We have about 25 percent of the women-led businesses experiencing increased profit yield from their businesses as a result of applying the digital skills they acquired from the project.
“I can say that the project achieved to a very satisfactory extent it’s object,ive including the output and outcome most especially creating impacts, because we have also seen a lot of impact stories associated with this project. We are very much proud that this project implemented by SDN, TAF and YAF got these outcomes,” he said.
Sharing their experiences, the beneficiaries thanked SDN for the opportunities made available to them, which they testified have developed their lives and businesses.
They specially appreciated SDN for also providing them with additional opportunities for mentorship and internship after the training programmes, adding that it has made many of them dependable and employed.
Esenwa Isioma Uche, from Delta state who was trained on digital marketing testified how the programme impacted her life and family.
She said, “Before I applied for the training, I used to be an introvert, I lack even the least courage to negotiate business with clients, but because I needed a better way to advise my business especially in the online space, I had to enroll.
“Today, that she’ll has been broken, I have so much confidence now to do things I never imagined I could ever do. I wasn’t just trained by SDN, I was able to implement my skills and I also got internship opportunities, and one of these internships led to a full time employment in the hub I trained at. Through that employment, I discovered other skills I didn’t even know were embedded in me all through the course of the training.
“I sincerely thank SDN for their intentionality and for carefully putting the needs of women at heart while creating the programme, they thought of every single thing that would distract an average person from learning, they took care of our feeding and transportation throughout the period of the training, beyond that, they provided us with internship opportunities and workshops to make me and other women feel better in the skills that we have learnt. Its been an amazing journey, and am truly grateful to SDN.”
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