Women in Africa

For as long as I have been coming to Africa I have always been struck by the profoundly important role African women play in society here and have been equally astounded about how unacknowledged that role is. Women literally do everything here. You rarely see women sitting around doing nothing.


They are either cooking, looking after children, washing clothes, cleaning houses, sewing, collecting water, working the land, running small enterprises like second hand clothes shops, fruit and vegetable shops etc. The list goes on and on. They truly are the fabric that holds African society together.

And yet more often than not they have no voice, no rights, no place to go if things go wrong in their domestic lives. Oftentimes they are forced to leave school early to look after the home and so go through life with little education unable to get out of the prison they are effectively in. In many parts of Africa, primitive practices like marrying off children as young as 8 years of age still take place. Female circumcision in the rural areas is still practiced. Domestic rape is rampant but more often than not abused women do not speak up for fear of the consequences. And even in some of the more 'advanced' cultures women are literally slaves to whatever a man desires. Systems have been setup that protect themselves from hard challenging questions through the use of draconian punishment for 'dissenters'.

Hence the oppressed women have no means to protest their subjugation for fear of what might happen to them and so the injustice continues.

Its one part of the culture out here that I find extremely difficult to just 'accept'. And in most circumstances just 'accepting' a cultural practice is the right thing to do. It makes for better dialogue between different cultural perspectives which ultimately leads to better understanding from both sides.

In this instance I just see the cultural practice as a form of primitive enslavement and a crass and abusive use of power on the part of men.

I visited a project the day before yesterday which was truly inspiring.

A couple of years ago a group of women got together under the magnificent leadership of a Masai woman called Veronica (I do not know her second name and I am sure that is not her Masai name!) to campaign for womens rights particularly in the rural areas of Kenya. Veronica is now in a wheelchair but battles on regradless. Her organisation is called TEWA.

After many years of hard work (and effectively no funding) they finally managed to convince the Kianda Foundation (a large educational foundation in Kenya) to support their cause.

In about 3 months time the magnificent TEWA training center in the Kilifi district (about an hour north of Mombasa) will open. The center will cater for about 100 women at a time giving them access to courses on literacy and numeracy, tailoring, cookery and nutrition, hygiene, agriculture and of course learning to use computers!



The center has full boarding facilities, classrooms and activity rooms and is surrounded by rich agricultural land where the women are taught to farm and cultivate crops.







The TEWA team really understand that learning about technology is crucial for the women that they are training. They have no doubts that entrepreneurial activity will result in this. I have no doubts either.

The center wants to have a state of the art computer training facility and has asked Camara to provide 50 computers - a ratio of one computer for every two women - so that peer to peer learning between the women can happen.
Women naturally embrace this form of learning which is a highly effective way of distributing knowledge. Men generally need to be brought kicking and screaming to a peer to peer learning session preferring to fight their collegaue over ownership of the computer;). Ahhh what the sexes can learn from one another especially us men....

I have no doubt that the partnership with TEWA will be a success. Again, I stress that these kind of partnerships are ideal for Camara particularly around the area of training.

If we can link with well established organisations that are reaching out to the most vulnerable members of the community here then it makes total sense that Camara provides the technical infrastructure and the training for these initiatives. And of course the trainers are local people who have been trained in the digital hub here;)

Suddenly, you can see people getting jobs from what they have learned here in the hub. An example of a development initiative that links education to enterprise - in my mind the holy grail of any development intervention.

If you can teach somebody something positive from which they manage to get a job then you are genuinely making a difference to somebodies life. And the catalyst for making this happen is these extraordinary educational tools we call computers. Thankfully not rotting in landfill sites...

Relative Poverty

Life is tough in Kenya at the best of times. The average wage out here is less than $100 a month with a huge percentage of people living on a lot less than that. What raises the average is a small percentage of extra-ordinarily wealthy people who live in palatial houses and drive cars most people in Ireland would be unable to afford.

The average person lives on a day to day basis. They only think about where the money for the next meal is going to come from. People are prepared to go to incredible lengths to keep going. A typical taxi driver for example who does not own their vehicle works anything up to 20 hours a day - more that half of this time is spent raising the money they need to pay the owner of the vehicle before they start earning money for themselves. This is done on a daily basis. If anything happens to the vehicle when its in his custody he is responsible for the bill. They can be fired at any stage even if they meet their rental commitments.

And this is the average person. Living a life like this makes it impossible to plan anything for the future. This is just existing. It brings home the point that poverty leaves you with no choices. That is the crux of the problem.

Now imagine if you had a disability out here and you are born into poverty. Quite literally, your only option is to beg and if that does not work you simply die on the streets.

Sometimes I wonder if looking after our most vulnerable is just a luxury of wealth. That is why it is essential we practice giving unconditionally so that giving becomes as instinctual to us as staying alive.

In 1972, a young 18 year old Kenyan boxer called Dick 'Tiger' Murunga won a bronze medal in the welter weight division at the Munich Olympics. It was an extraordinary achievement at the time and he instantly became a Kenyan national hero.

A number of years later he developed a debilitating shin injury (due apparently to over training and poor nutrition) which confined him to a wheelchair. Over the last number of years the 'Tiger' has been championing the cause for people with disabilities in Africa. He has tirelessly traveled the globe raising awareness and funds for this cause. He even managed to get an audience with Barack Obama when he was still a senator!

I met him this week to look at the possibility of Camara and his charity doing some work together.

One of the projects he is working on is the establishment of an accessible campus just outside Mombasa where people from all over the world with disabilities can visit. The idea is to raise national awareness around the needs of people with disabilities along with providing an outreach center and funding for local people with disabilities.

Part of this campus will include an accessible computer training center. Dick would like Camara to provide the computers for the center.

I think the partnership has fantastic potential. Here is a local hero, politically unaligned, championing the cause of one of the most marginalised communities in Kenya (and Africa generally) and he has recognised the potent role technology can play to help this cause.

As the Camara operations on the ground in Africa stabilise I have no doubt that more and more connections like this will happen. The audacity of hope....what a wonderful phrase;)