e-BARWAAQO for Displaced Women & Girls.

Gender inequality and instable economic development are prominent issues in Somaliland, where girls and women especially from internally displaced camps, are deprived of education and digital literacy opportunities, due to partiarchy and negative social norms. e-BARWAAQO seeks to improve the lives and protect the rights of these women and girls through digital economic strengthening activities. e-BARWAAQO would educate and train 5000 adolescent girls and women from IDP camps in critical technology, financial literacy and job skills that allow them a chance to compete in an ever-growing digital economy. This will assist them in becoming economic actors in their host communities and agents of their own integration in Somaliland, while also contributing to national development by generating employment and supporting the creation of small businesses. With revenue generation opportunities, it is proven to be both sustainable, scalable and can bring about positive impact on their lives, globally.

In a under-developed country like Somaliland, where 50% of young people are presently out of school, and with most girls hardly completing the full 8 years of primary school. Most women and girls are subjugated and largely denied education and autonomy with women (age 15 and over) illiteracy rate at an alarming 73.6%. According to the UN-led Protection and Return Monitoring Network, 1.5 million Somalis are currently displaced within the country, with their livelihoods have been destroyed and they find themselves dependent on humanitarian assistance for survival. In this context, women engagement in modern economy is negligible and they face huge difficulties in entering and competing in the economy. Even girls who are able to enrol in local schools face discrimination, resulting in a scarcity of professional skills. Although digital literacy, can impart technical skills and  allow financial independence, to adolescent girls and  women in the country, is limited due to both cultural and resource barriers. 

e-BARWAAQO will address four areas of support to self-reliance and employability of internally displaced women & girls: critical skills development, entrepreneurship supports, access to market and finance. e-BARWAAQO empowers adolescent girls and women from IDP camps through imparting comprehensive training in digital literacy, critical skills training and financial literacy. This would enable them to become professionals in the digital age. At a macro level, this includes strengthening rights and protection in promoting IDP legitimacy through access to legal documents and permits. More locally, this includes human capacity development in supporting women’s skills and knowledge development and access to resources through training courses and links to market. The training course would include International Computer Driving License (ICDL) modules, Digital Marketing basics and Financial Literacy. e-BARWAAQO will collaborate with startup accelerator such as Innovate Ventures-a local initiave, that will provide an early-stage startup fund supporting ambitious startups who use technology to change the world. e-BARWAAQO will help them to prepare business plan, marketing strategies and connect them with the knowledge, support programs, mentors and investors they need to succeed, including the local Chamber of Commerce that would further support the success of the mission-led, female-founded startups. 

Adolescent Girls and women who are internally displaced and exploited in many ways in Somaliland would be our target population. Our aim to break and eliminate barriers in gender equality by providing women in Somaliland access to the technology and opportunities that have eluded them. Presently, we are working with these target population across the nation's 5 regions to address their immediate needs related to their health and awareness towards human rights to education as our vision to make our country is such where all women have an equal opportunity and access to technology and education. we are involving the target population while planning the intervention.We will expand our endeavour to non IDP areas in the country and ensure that every woman has a voice in her future and the future of her community.

e-BARWAAQO leverages technology as our core lever for change. We would impart training skills to the girls and women, encourage them to become digital entrepreneurs. Our IT centers would assist girls and women entrepreneurs to connect with online marketplace and partner with the local chamber of commerce. This would empower girls and women who have been culturally dissuaded. We would assist them to prepare the business plan and help in managing their business. Linking them to the financial institutions to receive start up support for their business. 

In Somaliland, schools do not teach computer skill to its students due to lack of resources and in general most of the citizens have no internet access. In Somaliland, girls and women cannot enjoy independence in general, are under-educated or school dropouts, negligible engagement in economic activities. e-BARWAAQO intends to fill this gap by assisting women and girls to access education and technology so to obtain the skills needed to be entrepreneurs and engage in today’s expanding markets.

e-BARWAAQO proposes to establish computer centers to provide girls and women with digital literacy skills and tools like computers and smartphones and teach International Computer Driving License (ICDL) modules, web design, and other related technology. The first to bring such center for women and girls from IDP camps in Somaliland, e-BARWAAQO would support women start, manage, and scale their businesses. 

The approach is unique and innovative because, first time in the country, such computer centres impart training to girls and women from IDP camps and encourage them to become entrepreneurs.

In the computer centre we propose to use digital systems that would include machine learning, control systems, big data management etc. Consumer-facing IT systems and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms and software will be used. Mechanical engineering and hardware technology also will be used to teach the learners.

e-BARWAAQO believes to leverage technology as the fundamental lever for change. The proposed computer centers would be the places of learning and creativity for entrepreneurship. This would be an outlet for women to use online marketplace. 

With the support from e-BARWAAQO, women will have more equal opportunity and prepare for inclusion in the digital economy. They will be equipped with the skills necessary and the social support that they need for collaboration and entrepreneurship.

The above-mentioned technologies are already being used in other countries such as India (Udayan Care Computer Learning Centres) and in Afghanistan. In these countries, similar approaches and programming were being adopted and more than 10,000 women and girls have been trained in digital literacy, financial literacy and entrepreneurship. Many women launched start-ups in different industries, and many of these start-up companies created 3-5 additional jobs.

e-BARWAAQO believes that girls and women should have equal opportunities therefore intervenes to eliminate such social and economic barriers that prevent gender equality and create opportunity for women and girls to acquire the digital and financial literacy.

With the above stated objectives, e-BARWAAQO proposes to intervene through establishing computer centres to impart digital and financial literacy for adolescent girls and women from IDP camps and support them to become the entrepreneurs.

This hybrid business model would impart skill training to about 3,360 such women and girls and assists them for start up their business that leads to economic empowerment. As an immediate outputs, enrolled women and girls from IDP camps and well-off families would complete the six months course module and ready to start up their business. In the process, the family and the community are supportive to women and girls for their economic freedom. 

The project will create enabler environment for girls and women for positive engagement in the economic activities and access the market pro-actively. As a result of such movement, women would contribute towards better shaping their families.

Economic empowerment of women would bring about larger changes in the society in terms of realising gender equality, dignity, opportunities and accessibility by the women and girls.

As the intervention is under the conceptual phase, e-BARWAAQO plans to open one computer centre in each IDP camp area for 28 such areas in Somaliland (Hargeisa, Borama, Berbera and Oodweyne). It is estimated that each centre will have two shifts and, in each shift, minimum 25 to 30 adolescent girls and women from the respective camp will be enrolled. In the second shift, e-BARWAAQO will encourage the students from well off families on pay basis so to generate revenue to sustain the computer center. The course will be for six months for each batch. It is estimated that total of 3360 learners will be completed their course within a year time.

With the same pace, e-BARWAAQO will reach to 16800 learners in five years and support these learners to complete the course and connect them with online market.

e-BARWAAQO believes that girls and women should have equal opportunities therefore intervenes to eliminate such social and economic barriers that prevent establishing gender equality. Based on such belief our immediate goal is to ensure equal opportunity for women and adolescent girls so that they are adequately prepared for inclusion in the digital economy.

Our long-term goal for the future is “a world where all women have an equal chance and access to technology and education, where everyone has the ability to realize individual potential to make their dreams reality”. 
In addition to further expansion throughout Somaliland, we will scale up our program into other countries such as Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda. By expanding, we will ensure that every woman has a voice in her future and the future of her community. 

Communities in Somaliland are largely agrarian, and clan based. The cultural belief system and norms are very traditional as well as patriarchal. The girls and women from IDP camps are extremely subjugated and do not receive any support from the community and the male members. We anticipate that these girls and women would face difficulties to attend the computer centre to learn the skills. on the other hand, as the intervention is in concept level, adequate financial resources are not available. Though our business model is hybrid and ensures revenue generation, but initial investment would be difficult to arrange for the organisation.  Availability of trained teachers on the mentioned technology may create barriers initially. Acceptance of women entrepreneurs in the society may be one of the major barriers to accomplish the goal we set for initial year.

In the long run, we would not face the social barriers but may face the accessibility and availability of adequate market along with competition by large IT companies may create problem for the business.

ANPPCANSOM, being a social and non-profit organisation, continuously working to generate awareness among the communities through its existing development and humanitarian initiatives. We expect the social barriers for women and girls would be reduced and extant of support would be gained from the family while they get the benefit of the skill development.

The intervention, by design, is hybrid in nature to generate revenue. We will charge a monthly fee from the women who are well off. This would be $15 per month. It would generate $12600 per month. This would be used to meet the recurring cost of these centres. However, initial investment would still be a problem. 

We are in touch with the IT colleges and universities to arrange trained personnel to appoint for these centres.

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ANPPCANSOM has more than 300 full-time but project based staff among which senior management team comprises with five senior staff members lead by executive director. we have strong program management operation and MEAL units lead by senior and experienced staff. 

 For the proposed project, one member from the senior management team would engaged in design, implementation and monitoring. 28 IT teachers, along with two mobile supervisors will execute the intervention. Apart from that, the organizational operation team will provide the initial support to establish the centres.   

ANPPCANSOM is manned by a team of highly experienced and dedicated professionals. Driven by the organization’s values and commitment to excel in the field of working with women and children, the team members serves as the backbone of all the projects being implemented. Our team is gender balanced and it is ensured that no one is discriminated on the basis various socio-economic and other factors. 

ANPPCANSOM have worked together with various partners including UNOCHA, UNICEF, the SUN MOVEMENT (UNPP) and USAID-IBTCI. For the realization our projects, we joined forces also with government ministries, INGOS and other local organizations. A number of important partnerships that we had over the last 5 years include:

• Mannion Daniels
• Genel Energy 
• WFP
• UNFPA
• WHO
• IGAD 
• AMPLIFY CHANGE
• Save The Children International 

e-BARWAAQO proposes the social enterprise with hybrid business model. Our computer centres would serve the disadvantage section of the society who are from IDP camps free of cost and build their skill on digital and financial literacy as well as given opportunity to connect with digital market for business. These learners would receive start up support along with management support at the initial stage. On the other hand the learners who are from economically better off families pay a nominal fee to learn the skills.

The fees collected from these learners would be used to fulfil the recurring cost of the centres while 1.5% share of the profit from the entrepreneurs would help us to scale up the project in terms of introducing new and essential technologies in the future.

However, the project will attract grants to start the centres to meet up initial investment initially and would expect continued financial support for three years to arrive at the breakeven point. It is estimated that the project will start earning profit from the forth years onwards

The intervention is designed as hybrid; thus, we would generate revenues from the services given to well off learners from the computer centres while many learners will receive the services free of costs. The project will require sustained grant for minimum three years to come to the breakeven point.

The computer centre will be an incubator for the learners. In exchange, we would ask for 1.5% of profits. This would help us to position our self for stability and growth.

As stated earlier, we are applying to Solve to show case our concept, which is unique and innovative,  to the larger audience through Solve’s website. This would increase the scope and opportunity for the proposed initiative to get attention from various stake holders. Secondly, getting the recognition from the prestigious platform not only motivate us but assist in executing the project with great enthusiasm.

We are looking for partner who can assist us in 

Technology access

Financial institutions 

Income generation

MIT faculty can help us to strengthen our hybrid business plan and we want to partner with similar initiatives to learn and share experiences to further strengthen our scale up efforts.