09/03/2024
CITAD, IADI Launch ICT Empowerment For Women In Gombe
The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) in partnership with Lenovo and Inclusive Access Development Initiative (IADI) formerly Azama Development Foundation (ADF) launched an ICT empowerment for women in Gombe state.
The 30 women selected for the empowerment programme would be trained on the usage of computer and software development.
Speaking at the launching of the programme on Thursday, the Executive Director of the CITAD, Y. Z. Yau said the empowerment was under CITAD's Digital Creative and Innovation For Young Women (DICI-YOW).
He said the women would be trained for ten months and given start-up support to help the women start strong.
He added that the aim was to make the women self reliant so that they would also employ others to reduce the rate of unemployment in the society.
"We looked at what we call the digital divide in Nigeria and we found out that there were more men who are more digitally skilled than women.
"We don't want the world to leave their women behind.
"So we felt that we should create awareness for women to also be in a position to learn digital skills so that they can live a better life.
"We will train them first on digital skills then we teach them some core ICT entrepreneurial skills such as coding, software development etc.
"Then we will do what we call business ideation, let them imagine what business can they build with these skills that they have learnt.
"So once they are able to come up with a business model, then we help them to create it through registering with the relevant bodies and then training them to get business support, either in terms of capital or in terms of other forms of non-monetary support," Yau stated.
He added that CITAD would also take responsibility for securing a business site, payment of electricity bill, provision of internet data and marketing among other things for the women upon completion of their training.
He further stated that the move was necessary to avoid the business from collapsing, adding that when they start generating profit, CITAD would stop the support.
Also speaking, the founder and executive director of Inclusive Access Development Initiative (IADI) and Chief Coordinator for CITAD Gombe, Sadiq Yahaya, explained that IADI would be facilitating the empowerment programme.
Yahaya said the foundation which is based in Gombe state is into empowerment of women and youths to be self reliant in handcraft and ICT.
He added that the empowerment would be under the IADI institute for practical entrepreneurship.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/allnews.ng/amp/news/citad-azama-launch-ict-empowerment-for-women-in-gombe
