Women have been challenged to explore income generating opportunities in the digital platforms to help achieve both individual and collective growth.
The call has been made at a time when the disparity between women and men, in relation to digital adoption and their relative opportunities to access and benefit from digital technology, remain a major barrier to equal participation.
Hellen Kimindiri from government-owned Ajira programme on Wednesday urged particularly young women to take advantage of the programme to fully utilise their potential and sharpen their skills.
Kimindiri, who is the programme's Lower Central regional coordinator, said more than 70 young women from the region have started reaping the fruits of the initiative after undergoing training on different online platforms that they can earn from.
The workshop happened at the Kirinyaga Central Youth Empowerment Centre, where participants exchanged ideas, shared experiences, opportunities and peer to peer mentorship on the resourcefulness and effectiveness of online jobs .
The workshop also served as a platform to commemorate International Women’s Day, which was last week celebrated under the theme ‘Digital All’.
“The women working online were exposed to different online platforms, including Fiverr, Remotask, Upwork, Clickworker, Guru, among others. Our main focus was to show them the various sites through which they can earn from," Kimindiri said.
"The sessions were interactive because the women were able to share ideas on how they can manoeuvre the digital space.”
She further said Ajira has introduced new modules and assistive technologies that seeks to help youth and persons living with disability.
eMobilis managing director Ken Mwenda said there is need to empower more than one million youths annually in an effort to access fulfilling and meaningful online work opportunities.
“In terms of skills development, operationalisation of Ajira youth empowerment centres and institutionalisation of Ajira clubs, which eMobilis is mandated to do, we have seen over 22,000 youths trained on digital-related work skills with 53 per cent being young women,” Mwenda said.
“As a way to entrench the online work among young people beyond training, mentorship and job linkages, we also continue to support the idea of building robust online workers' communities geared towards bringing the youths together to encourage them to do peer to peer mentorship, networking and opportunity sharing.”
Susan Gichobi, a participant who is a person living with disability, said she discovered Ajira Digital in mid-2022, which opened up a whole new world of opportunities for her.
“ I was trained in content writing, digital marketing and data entry under the guidance of my mentor, Anthony Kaburi. After the training and mentorship, I have been able to secure jobs that earn me a dignified income,”she said.
Gichobi said, as a result, she has delved into writing novels online and has, so far, delivered more than 10 chapters.
“The income from digital freelancing has enabled me to support myself and also set up a small grocery business for my mother,” she said.
Mary Wambui from Muranga county said she came to know about Ajira when she was pursuing a Public Administration course at Karatina University. The team had visited the institution to publicise the programme in 2020.
Wambui says was able to learn digital marketing, e-commerce and data entry. Through that, she says, she has been able to earn through online platforms and support herself.
“Today’s meet-up has been very impactful as I have been able to interact with other online writers, data entry and content writers, among others. I will be able to do more than what I usually do. The online work needs consistency,” she said .