WOMEN RISE DIGITAL CENTER

THE ISSUES: GENDER INEQUALITY AND POVERTY

Education is the greatest resource to prevent child marriage and poverty. Women and girls need basic computer education and internet access to escape poverty, rise above gender discrimination, and succeed in today’s increasingly digital and global workforce. During the lockdown, without computers or internet, many girls were forced to halt or delay their education and became vulnerable to child marriage.
  • Only 16% of women have access to internet
  • There are 1.5 million child marriages in India, the highest in the world.
  • Up to 10 million girls are at risk of dropping out of secondary education due to Pandemic.

THE VISION: WOMEN RISE DIGITAL CENTER

While regular business and education activities were disrupted during the pandemic, the women and girls in our SHE and SISTER AID programs personified leadership by forming groups to solve problems. These same girls and women have contributed to the Digital Center program design through surveys, their ideas and comments are summarized below.

BACKGROUND & GOALS

We are seeding a real revolution! 

Utilizing an existing structure, located in an accessible and safe central location, THE WOMEN RISE DIGITAL CENTER will expand our current pilot Digital Literacy Program with 5 computers, adding 100 computers to serve 2400 women and girls from 35 nearby villages each year. Professional trainers can also easily access the center from the city. This centralized area will provide critical electricity and Internet connections that are not available throughout these rural villages. Goals of the center include:

1) To improve access to and use of computers, the internet, and e-commerce,

2) To enhance digital literacy skills,

3) To enhance educational preparation and learning opportunities,

4) To expand business opportunities and preparation for professional jobs.

Our pilot program with 5 Laptop computers and Internet connection together with skills training have already shown incredible impact in this community as of June, 2022:

  • Girls are getting respect from boys as they shore up their computer literacy. 

  • Girls are helping illiterate farmers who need government assistance but do not have access to information nor can they apply online.

  • Girls are assisting women with micro-loan business such as helping artisans to access to E commerce.

This expansion of our current Digital Literacy Program will serve as a safe hub and model for replication in other rural communities that are seeking to advance both gender equality and economic development.

SURVEY RESULTS

WOMEN RISE DIGITAL CENTER is the next phase of YGB’s programs of empowerment that we have been operating with NGO Partner NISHTHA for the last over a decade. Sister Aid empowers 550 mothers with Microloans and early education for 600 young daughters. SHE (Scholarship for Higher Education for 300 girls to attain college degree) We continually collaborate with the women and girls that benefit from SISTER AID and SHE programs in identifying needed strategies that are relevant and important to them. Recently we have surveyed the girls and women that will use the center to fully inform all the strategies and specific opportunities it can provide. Strategies that have been suggested include:
  • Basic computer training, advanced computer and software training (Microsoft)
  • Internet research methods
  • Introduction to online banking
  • English language classes
  • Utilizing WhatsApp for communication
  • Vocational training to prepare for lucrative job opportunities in the medical and technology fields
  • Excel, inventory, and accounting training for the microloan recipients introduction and access to e-commerce tools
  • Conducting market research and building sales pages
  • Applying for government programs for farming
  • Utilizing online design programs to support sari-stitching and other product design innovations.
In response to, how will the digital center help you, one student wrote:

“This digital centre will not help only us, but our community also, and our other brothers and sisters. If we have our own digital centre then we can make our studies easier. We have to give entrance examination, filling out application form for government jobs, examination and applying for scholarships. This digital centre will help mothers also in many ways like they can advertise their products and sell online. Nowadays they are using Whatsapp for expanding their business and selling their products. They can sell their products and goods on other big platforms like Amazon and Flipkart they just need to learn.”
THE IMPACT: WOMEN RISE DIGITAL CENTER directly addresses the known digital divide for rural communities and women; empowering girls and women with resources and technology to continue their education and connect with the global market and workforce.

Online interactive teaching methods can help to rectify inequalities in education experienced by girls and women. This project will provide a safe hub of computers and internet access for girls to succeed in college/the workforce, and expand the resources and business opportunities for our microloan recipients.

Over the last ten years, we have witnessed that when women and girls demonstrate income earning potential, male family members start to value them as equal members of their community.

Empowered girls now voice their opinions in their families and communities, stand up for their basic rights, and create a new culture where women are valued and respected as leaders. They are role models for the younger generation, creating a positive ripple effect of gender equality into the future. From our recent survey YGB SHE students shared about their sense of empowerment and growth.

“During the pandemic lockdown, people were breaking, we stood beside them and helped our community, our own people, by visiting village to village and home to home. Be it lockdown or Amphan cyclone we never left our community: we distributed food items, hygiene kit, and sometimes dried fruits to keep their hopes alive. We managed to bring back many members who were stuck in another state during the lockdown. These opportunities to serve our community and people was only possible because of NISHTHA programme which has trained us to handle situations like this.”

“To change the world first change yourself. We are going to make a change and NISHTHA is the place where we have changed our self”

–SHE SCHOLARHIP STUDENT

Read YGB Blogs about the growing Digital Divide in India:

EDUCATION IN CRISIS: An important conversation with Kayoko Mitsumatsu of Yoga Gives Back and NGO Partner Prajna Neelgund, of Deenabandhu Trust in Karnataka, India

GETTING CHILDREN BACK TO SCHOOL IN INDIA

JOIN OUR DREAM TO CONQUER THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

Yoga Gives Back is currently fundraising and seeking support for this important project. Email info@yogagivesback.org if you would like to support Women Rise Digital Center.

Image of this project by Nagaraj, SHE scholarship student