Airtel Uganda Female Staff Empowering Women in Nakaseke District, Accelerating Action

Airtel Uganda celebrated International Women’s Day at Nakaseke Public Library/Telecenter in Nakaseke District.

Digital literacy can seem daunting at all first-time engagement and yet the sparks of new discoveries are entirely rewarding. When women actively support other women on how to use digital technologies to fully participate in the growing big bold digital world, confidence, a sense of support is built, and digital misconceptions are broken down. This is what happened as the airtel staff members spent time with community women and girls at the Nakaseke Public Library.

Sharing their raw career experiences, and practical tips on various crucial topics such as multi-faceted financial skills, productivity hacks, time management mastery, leadership essentials, and digital skills for employability the staff members spared no detail on how to work through these tips to accelerate change. Through relatable personal stories, the staff shared the importance of having mentors and leaders look up to for inspiration and encouragement to aim for more in life with the attitude of a lifelong learner. Listening to stories of mentors and courageous leaders is a powerful tool that continuously affirms our dreams as valid and attainable.

The ladies shared practical time management tips that support prioritizing tasks such that they get done. As the Airtel stuff shared their personal stories, the ladies too generously shared their life journeys, including dropping out of school, going all the way to the university and never getting to use the earned degrees, the digital entry skills they gained through packages like Microsoft excel that they had never tried out, among other stories.

Commending the Nakaseke Public Library highly, the community women demonstrated how they are using the internet and digital skills to benefit from the digital economy. One phenomenal young lady who is a jerk of all trades; able to bake, do hair dressing, handle simple phone repairs and dip her hand in car repairs shared how she used the internet to enhance her culinary arts through designing her cakes, creating new flavors and marketing her products despite having dropped out of school after senior four. She has created multiple sources of income that help her take care of her siblings having been taken care of herself by an uncle. Her dreams were awakened to re-ignite her passion for the academics to complete senior four.

Miss Beatrice, a community health worker in her own words declared “one thing I know is that my children will not learn to use computers and the internet at my age. I am investing in this so that I can empower my children with digital skills earlier in life.” Beatrice herself having been dragged to the public library by her younger work colleague, she had held the misconception that internet use and digital skills are too hard for older people to learn. A story from the airtel staff and how she overcame her fear to put her software engineering course to use encouraged her to reach out and learn even more. Another lady who is transitioning from a nursery teaching job had endured many career roadblocks because she had no digital skills including basic Microsoft. At the public library, she learned to use the internet to research on behalf of her sister at the university and also learned new skills such as printing, graphic designing, photocopying among others that will position her to apply for more gainful employment.

Airtel Uganda has partnered with 14 Public Libraries across the country since 2019 to connect internet and create learning opportunities for all people regardless of their social contexts. Airtel Uganda is accelerating action through contributing to the achievement of SDG 1-ending poverty by improving digital skills for employability, SDG 5 by empowering women and girls through digital skilling, and SDG 9 by fostering innovation and the use of technology to achieve sustainable development.

Having not succeeded at looking for jobs, one of the ladies, had long shelved her Economics degree and settled for selling popcorns; but hey, who said we cannot do both?! The airtel staff members compelled her to revisit her degree and shared practical guidelines for writing her resume to put her skills to use as there is no limit to what women can accomplish. Conversations like these re-ignite dreams that were long put on hold. As Uganda unveiled the digital agenda that provides a road map for adding ICT to education spaces including administration, the two health workers who attended the career conversation with airtel staff members were glad to have attended seeing that data entry at the health centers is well on the way to being digitized.

Soumendra Sahu, Managing Director of Airtel Uganda reiterated Airtel Uganda’s support to creating mutually beneficial relationships that scale digital learning. He added, “At the core of Airtel Uganda’s innovations is the desire to truly transform the lives of people. To accelerate action, airtel collaborated with American Tower Corporation ATC to launch the Digital Communities Program which has established select public libraries across the country as digital community centers that provide access to computers, internet and digital literacy, particularly focusing on empowering young people and women.”