–In Efforts to Bridge Digital Gender Inequality
IPNEWS-Monrovia: In an effort to increase women’s participation and bridge digital gender inequality, The Internet Society Liberia Chapter with funding from the Internet Society Foundation over the weekend graduated over 130 women and girls in Information Technology (ICT).
According to research, more women are being harassed online daily, while a younger girl in grade school faces some form of bullying or digital harassment. Even women who decide to avoid going online are vulnerable and face ICT-facilitated abuse. Women lacking digital skills may be unaware of when technology is being used to control and abuse them, and therefore are unable to safeguard against ICT-facilitated violence.
The graduation of the females was a fulfillment of a three-days interactive and intensive workshop symposium organized under the theme: “Gender Inequality: Bridging Digital Gender Gap, Increasing Women’s Participation.”
The workshop took place from April 26 – 28, 2023 through a hybrid workshop and brought together female participants from various high schools, universities, government, SME businesses, Journalists, civil society, and non-profits to discuss the most important issues facing the digital world.
Zoom conference center (April 26 – 27), online via Zoom webinar, and face-to-face session at Corina Hotel.
The workshop aimed at sharing best practices and building capacity for females in a diversity of sectors in Liberia.
Also, seek to unlocking of the digital gender gap in Liberia through increasing women’s participation is to offer an intensive learning progression or experience covering a wide range of topics on bridging the digital gender gap.
The primary objective of the project is to reduce the digital gap by conducting training awareness for 130 young female high school and university students to provide the requisite skills to enhance their abilities to bridge the digital gap and encourage them to get involved with technology.
Speaking during the program, Internet Society Liberia Chapter President, Mr. Matthew Roberts said he is excited that the aim of the project has been met and young universities and high school students are now in high gear to compete with their male counterparts in the Tech sector.
He motivated the women to see the profession as a field of competition for all, instead of the normal belief that it’s a male profession that why it’s dominated by men.
On their part, the over 130 female participants at the climax of the three-day digital symposium and capacity building workshop named limited financial funding, lack of opportunities, safe digital space and high cost of data and electronic devices as major challenges affecting the digital inequality gap in Liberia and Africa at large.
The females described those concerns as very grave and alarming, recommending immediate efforts in addressing those concerns before the field became largely dominated by men as it’s currently.
Speaking to this paper, Ms. Ruth Nyan a high school student said that the huge digital inequality gap continued to exist between females and their male counterparts because most women in Liberia and Africa at large are uneducated, untrained and financially incapable of purchasing and operating various digital and electronic devices.
She pointed out that all of those challenges are happening due to limited investment and support by international and local partners in the tech sector to create opportunities for females to compete with their male counterparts by creating more educational technology facilities, scholarships and capacity building training for women.
“We appreciate the Internet Society and its partners, the Internet Foundation, for their support and training. However, to address this huge gape; we need this training annually, maybe three or two times a year. We will also need a female youth digital training theater”.
This theater will be in the country to train and educate the girls about basic computer skills and knowledge before they can choose specifically where they want to go in the technology sector to address this gap.
“This will also be the result of this training we have gotten. Now that we get the education, you people should have a place for us to learn for at least three or six months before coming back to society. This will require funding and we are appealing to your partners and our government also to look in that direction” She concluded.
