International Women’s Day in Mariakani

The 2011 International Women day (IWD), celebrations will be commemorated at Mwawesa sub-location in Rabai District at the Coast province. This year’s celebrations mark 100 years since the launch of this special day that highlights the challenges women continue to face each day, and applauds the milestones achieved thus far.

Nationally, the 2011 IWD theme is: “Equal access to education, training, and science and technology: pathway to decent work for women”. This is therefore, a special Day that provides an opportunity for all women of the world to review the progress made in the struggle of equality, peace and development. It is an opportunity to unite, network and mobilize women’s efforts for meaningful change. For the women at Mariakani , it is a special moment to reflect on the progress made in terms of training, science and  technology.

Since its establishment in 2010 the Sombeza Community Knowledge Center (CKC) has demonstrated concern for the welfare and special needs of women due to the contribution that they make to the economic, social and political lives of the communities and the nation at large. Of all the participants trained till December 2010, 47 percent were women.

Percentage of Male and Female participants

Accordingly, the CKC has been training the Reach Up program partnering with Digital Opportunity Trust Kenya. The program provides participants with tools and capabilities to help them advance their economic status through building successful, sustainable livelihoods. The training mentors and coaches, providing business and ICT knowledge as well as and business development opportunities. The participants are taught how to use technology effectively and combined to produce scalable and sustainable entrepreneurship and educational development.

Women learnt the skills and need to practice them in their livelihoods and also at the CKC which is open for use to the community for practicing and also accessing knowledge. The graduates are advised to make use of the skills learnt from the training to improve on their livelihoods. They are also supposed to encourage other members from the community to enroll for the classes which are being conducted at the CKC.

As the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon says, With such technologies as ” Cellphones and the Internet, for example, can enable women to improve the health and well-being of their families, take advantage of income-earning opportunities, and protect themselves from exploitation and vulnerability.  Access to such tools, backed up by education and training, can help women to break the cycle of poverty, combat injustice and exercise their rights.”  At the CKC, women can solve their problems easily even by sharing them and reading more on how other women have solved them globally.

The IWD was commemorated for the first time on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, following its establishment during the Socialist International meeting the prior year. More than one million women and men attended rallies on that first commemoration.