Mobile Skills Training for Young Women

Despite the efforts made by Kenyan government in reforming access to vocational training for women,  only 30% of the total enrollments to TVET programs comprise of women.
Most young women endure persistent challenges of accessing and completing vocational training. Many girls can’t afford accommodation, commuting, and training requirements costs.   Besides, poverty and patriarchal based social-cultural norms have deprived of the right to education for most girls hence left to fend for their families.

If these young women are given a platform to undertake flexible training brought closer to their homes, without incurring the costs mentioned above then realizing skills training for such women would be feasible.

We therefore endeavor to reach as many young women as possible by  pioneering a mobile home-based vocational training for young women and girls in Kiambu-Kenya.
Attaining resilience and sustainability in  economic strengths of  beneficiaries and their communities by encouraging entrepreneurship hence self-employment is our object.

The problem  is the challenge of accessing and completing vocational training by young women in Kiambu County.

 The net enrollment in primary education of girls in Kiambu County is 97.5% which drops to 78.5% in secondary school enrollments hence, many girls do not progress to or complete their secondary education. Nearly 19,900 girls complete their primary education every year in the county and only 15,800 make it to secondary schools. Therefore, about 4,000 girls do not proceed to secondary school. Of the 15,800 who proceed to secondary schools, around 3,300 drop out in the course of their studies.

 Conclusively, approximately 7,800 young women in the county dropout from  different levels of school systems.This number  either  remains  at home without any training, employment or enter the labor market as unskilled workers. Yet, most of these women opt for a skill based training eventually acquiring practical skills that would enter them into workforce.

Scarcity of resources to support their education, traditional patriarchal cultures that deprives their rights to education and domestic duties keep most girls from accessing  training. 

 Failure to address this challenge subjects girls to early  marriages hence objects of domestic violence, drugs and substance abuse, women trafficking and unwanted pregnancies.

Bringing a mobile solar powered training classroom to the door steps of the disadvantaged and marginalized young women from the rural and slum areas of  Kiambu County is our solution. Making skills training possible and accessible to every young woman in the county that is incapable of undertaking skills training courtesy of distance cost covering challenges and other limiting factors is our objective.  

 The mobile classroom is a fully functional vehicle-based system equipped with solar powered computer technology, Wi-Fi routers, video conferencing screen for distance learning, adjustable workshops and workshop equipment needed to facilitate any quality learning process.

The program is tailored inline with the demands  and lifestyle of the communities targeted as the learners are allowed to come up with the days and training duration of their convenience.

We aim to  train young women on management of finances and start small business enterprises. Further, the training shall focus on sharpening innovative skills that  spearhead a socially and economically sustainable safe environment thus ensuring that they are actively involved in  their own development. 

Courses intended to be pursued include;

• beauty therapy and hairdressing
• Craft in ICT and secretarial studies
• mechanical engineering
• Welding and fitting
• Plumbing
• computer and phone repair

The solution serves the following categories of young women

• Girls that have completed their primary education and are unable to transit to secondary education
• Girls  that have dropped out of their secondary education
• Young women that have completed their secondary education and cannot progress to the tertiary levels of education
• Those that dropped out of their tertiary education

We  work alongside local administration and institutions  i.e area chiefs, churches and ward administrators to help identify central training points  in a particular ward and singling out of  girls in need of training within their jurisdiction. The girls are later engaged in a career guidance hence able to make informed choice of course to pursue.

Local entrepreneurs come in handy in helping meet training props for the program thus cutting on costs, mentorship as well as providing internship opportunities.

The program addresses the literacy needs of the societies, diversifies indigenous livelihoods, equipped beneficiaries with innovative skills and knowledge capacity needed for self-employment  besides increasing  their levels of employability in the job market.

This would spur the economic prowess of most girls hence strengthening the economic statuses of their families and be mitigated from the vulnerabilities that they could have been exposed to.

While the objective of many governments is to strengthen women education within their nations, social, economic and geographical  barriers still block the road to education of many young women.  With low and slow rates of women enrollment, especially in vocational training, realizing equal quality education to women in many countries is still an illusion.

Moving the classroom to where the learners are is a means of overcoming barriers to women education thus prompting an increase in the number of women enrollment to vocational learning. It further awakens inspiration of learning for  women whose hope of partaking training had been squashed.

The self-sufficient mobile classroom initiative overrides any form of barriers to the implementation of this program as it doesn't depend on the availability of local resources. Reliance on electricity to expediting digital learning in the rural and slum areas of Kiambuu is unreliable, therefore, maximum use of the ecofriendly and sustainable solar energy as the main source of power for facilitating the learning process itself is a big step.
The mobility of the class room makes it easier to access a good number of learners thus covering a larger geographical area within a short span of time. Beside the class is designed in such a way as to provide conducive learning milieus for the student thus not subjecting them to the scorching sun and other adverse weather conditions. The class can accommodate 12 students per session besides the erected portable tents outside the classroom that would help facilitate practical classes. Besides the mobility helps cover up the commuting and distance covering costs.
Such a project has been tailored in the Kenya’s pastoralist communities dabbed as Ujuzi Manyattani which aims at providing a mobile village based vocational training. However it solely relies on the resources provided by the communities from which the participants came from. Moreover, the use of a vehicle based classroom is not embraced instead shades of trees and available empty classrooms provided by the local institutions are used. Neither is solar technology for energy provision is exploited thus limiting the number of courses that could be pursued.

In order to efficiently run the practical class session, availability of energy is crucial. This energy would be needed to provide electricity for classes such as hair dressing, information technology, computer packages, wielding and fitting as well as mechanic. For lack of a reliable power flow and availability in the targeted area, the project shall heavily rely on solar energy technology.
This technology requires solar panels that harnesses the readily available energy from the sun. The energy is converted by an inverter to electric power which can be stored in capacitors hence be used for the fore mentioned classes. 
Furthermore , the project uses computer technology for student portals accesses created through an online E-learning system that enables to keep students’ databases, carryout evaluation and assessments, as well as facilitate content creation.

While solar powered mobile  classroom technology has not yet been embraced in Kenya it  is becoming a widely used technology used to facilitate mobile classes hence facilitate learning in the most remote and off  the grid locations in the world.

Initiatives such as the mobile vocational education (MoVE) in India is approve of a successful mobile solar education. Initiated in 2012, MoVE is provides a solar powered classroom on wheels to inaccessible rural locations of India. The class is equipped with 20 solar powered computers that facilitate digital learning. The initiative has served more than 800 beneficiaries.

(https://www.amrita.edu/research/project/mobile-vocational-education-move

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259851083_MoVE_Mobile_vocational_education_for_rural_India)

Digi truck, likewise, is another solar powered mobile classroom initiative engineered by close the gap non-profit organization alongside Arrow Electronics and   Hoope for Hope organizations across Africa aimed to meet digital learning to areas that are less accessible in Africa.

(https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/solar-powered-classrooms-bring-digital-education-to-rural-africa_c)

Samsung Company has also successfully pioneered the same model of classroom in rural Ghana (http://www.communicationsafrica.com/power/samsung-brings-solar-powered-mobile-schools-to-rural-ghana

There are numerous ways through which vocational education especially through mobile classroom training program can improve the labor market outcomes for young women. Lack of skills is a latent barrier that hinder accessibility to employment for many youthful women.  Since meeting training prerequisites alongside the training itself is costly, young women facing social cultural prejudices and financial constraints may be unable to invest in such educational programs. Therefore, by making feasible the accessibility of and affordability of the training would result to increase in educational attainment among our target population.

The Economic theory propounds that an increase in worker skills and productivity, increases the labor demand. Thereby, alleviating barriers to accessing vocational training among young women and girls would result to empowerment of such young women with skills that yields productivity hence their high demand in the highly competitive labor market.

But if the skills invested in the young women are not in sufficient demand due to insufficient labor demand which is often a common trend in the developing world then the training program is likely to improve self-employment and entrepreneurship.

However, the training responds to the needs of the job market hence it provides skills that are better aligned with the labor market; consequently the trainees have an increased market prospects. We believe in the assertion that to empower a woman is to empower the society, for a woman's ability to get a gainful employment in the future yields a ripple effect for the entire family and the larger community.

 We therefore present the following range of outcomes for which we expect to see an effect of increased women enrollment to vocational training.

•  Increased earnings courtesy  of self-employment and entrepreneurship profits
•  Improvement in the living standards including asset ownership by women
• Impact on attitudes (i.e. women education), human capital, marriage and fertility.
• Increased women participation in fore fronting sustainable and environment friendly innovations.

Currently, the solution intends to serve 50 girls across  Thika sub-county. The skills training will be piloted in the four wards (Township, Kamenu, Hospital, and Gatuanyaga) of Thika District (a sub-county  of Kiambu county). The project will be polished based on how well the program takes root in the four wards. By the end of 2021, we project to extend the initiative to 12 more wards hence reaching young women in three more districts within the county. Targeting 14 women per ward, we intend to enroll and support about 232 young women by the end of 2021. 
By 2022, we will be start to extend the mobile classroom program across the remaining part of the county. This will allow us to enroll and train 5,300 young girls by 2026. We however target to increase the number of women in enrollment to the training from 12 to 20 per ward each year consequently increase the number of women participating in the education sector of the county. 

Our solution endeavors to realize;

• An increase in the number of women enrolled and training in the vocational areas of education.
• Increase the number of young women equipped with suitable skills for the job market.
• Startup enterprises and promote employment of the program beneficiaries.

In order to achieve these goals, we shall seek the partnership with;

• Local enterprises, and industries for internship, mentorship and employment of the trained women.
• local investors for project grants for the graduates of the program
• Local leadership and administration to facilitate Societal education and awareness on the importance of allowing young women to join the training  program

Currently there are more than 7000 women in Kiambu County that are in need of skills training but experience challenges that hinder them from accessing these training. Cultural demands means they are left at home doing chores and have no time to go to school. 

Mobile vocation training provides a backdrop of hope for such women. Conversely, with it, comes the need for heavy logistical support. Therefore coming up with resilient model of operation and stratagems complimented by the required solution technology is pertinent in seeing a successful access to training for such a large number of clients. Thereby, partnership with solve becomes essential.

• Seeking partnership with local investors and local government in meeting most of the necessary resources to facilitate the success of this project.
• Schedule training when the women are not busy attending to domestic chores
• Provide training together with other skills like entrepreneurship, communication skills and general studies
• Partnering with microfinance institutions to help them access fund to start business
• introduce training that will lead to self employment or employment.

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16 people make up our solution team. They all work an a full time basis

Our team is made up of an array of diverse expertise in technical, technological and educational fields. IT team is comprised IT specialists specialized in  software engineering, system administrating as well as data scientists who play a major role in digitizing our learning process. The technical team on the other hand has electrical engineers and electrical technicians. With over ten years of experience in vocational training and education, the educational team is encompassed with skilled personnel in curriculum development, implementation and training.

We partner with the following institutions;

•  ICT College through  Sharing of resources skills and knowledge in vocational skills training. In addition, the college offer training of more than 20 students that we sponsor education-wise.
• Microfinance to help the women access to fund funds to establish a business once qualified.
• Local government and the ministry of education that certifies the training to ensure we meet the required standards. 

In Kiambu more than 7000 women and girls do not attend school or training and make up a larger fraction of the unskilled labor. This women are thus subjected to abject conditions of life which would change if they are empowered  through a quality skills education. This would be a sentence to poverty.  

We currently support girls' education from primary school through university and college  education.Over 500 girls have been through our program many of which can not afford enrolling to a college that provides quality education which costs about $1000 per year.  it isn't enough to just support the girls through their education as barriers such as domestic duties for girls that are being looked up to  by siblings and their families wouldn't benefit much.  Thus mobile classroom is a more proactive and innovative model of reaching such groups of young women.

Graduates of our program usually marry later,start a business or choose a career, earn more money, have fewer children, educate all their children, assist their parents and siblings financially. They become role models for the community to embrace the importance of well-educated girls. 

We are primarily funded through sustained donations since 1998. Many of these donors have continued to date with their sustained donations. 

Moving forward we want to focus on sustainable projects where we can have private students who pay fees attending training with sponsored vulnerable women and girls. 

To be selected by MIT as a Solver Team would immensely  elevate our donors respect. It would provide new donors with great confidence in our work. The media and conference exposure would provide the opportunities to develop new donors especially beginning the process of a long term endowment to secure our school and programming.

Professional support from MIT staff would be invaluable with technical support for mobile classroom learning, developing a more intensive program for vocational skills training, developing a monitoring and evaluation program and review of marketing and media exposure plan.

Working with other Solve Teams would provide more expertise following their successes. It would also be helpful to know what programs did not work and why and how to improve, grow and scale up.

MIT faculty to help with long term business development, monitoring and evaluation plan.  Help with innovation of the mobile training classroom and Developing our skills more in these areas would definitely advance our progress.

Through Vocational skills we believe that women are at the heart of solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. That’s why we’re dedicated to promoting education and skills training in communities to achieve sustainable outcomes in health, education, and political and economic empowerment of women.

By helping women pursue their aspirations, we empower them to contribute to, and benefit from, the creation of more peaceful, safe and prosperous communities.

The challenges facing Kenya are huge. Despite the considerable progress being made, the future still is uncertain for many disadvantaged communities.  Poverty, inequality, unemployment and corruption hinder one of the most economically and politically important countries in East Africa.

Out of Africa charity grew out of a need to respond to the desperate plight of orphaned and disadvantaged children who live without basic amenities and can’t afford  education and vocational skills training. We believe that education is a fundamental children’s right and should not always depend on the economic capacity of their parents.

Families want the best for their children, but lack the financial means to support their education. We know that communities understand their issues, and that they have the solutions to those issues.

As a result, the charity raises funds to pay school fees, we not only pay school fees, but provide other essentials, such as uniforms, books, and sanitary protection and also cover medical costs where possible and will support the basic needs of each child.

            From the three children that the charity supported in 1996 the organisation today is sponsoring 250 children with access to education.  This has helped to maintain and strengthen our ties with the children, their families, local and international partners and the wider community. We are able to develop projects through consultation with them to support their needs and to assist in the alleviation of rural poverty, education of orphans and disadvantaged children, increasing their self-sufficiency and long-term sustainability making the world a better place for everyone.