SDN empowers 156 women in Niger Delta with tech skills

Determined to close the gender gaps in digital skills, the Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN), has trained and empowered 156 women across two States in Niger Delta region on tech skills.

The project targets women-led business and unemployed female graduates. Focused on addressing gender gaps on the tech ecosystem, the beneficiaries were trained and equipped with data analytics, digital marketing, cyber security, and graphics design.

This brings to 1,600 , number of women who have benefitted from the organisation under its Women-led Digital Skills Training Programe under its “Reducing the Digital Gender Gaps in the Niger Delta Project, which commenced in 2023.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony of the Batch III Cohorts in Port Harcourt, the Nigeria Country Director of SDN, Florence IbokAbasi, said, reducing the Digital Gender Program which is funded by the European Union is aimed at empowering women, who are unemployed with digital skills that can help them become financially viable and have access to job opportunities.

IbokAbasi pointed out that the training was Needs-based to fit local and international jobs demand.

She said: “The program was designed for women because we did notice within the Niger Delta, especially towards the end of the second decade of this millennium that it became a male-dominated field. Despite women being deemed as vulnerable groups, when you equip them with skills, you not only empower them, but you empower the entire family.

“The problem we saw and this is what we have been studying since 2017. We noticed that you had a lot more men attending some of the courses we had available for free and you had far less women and even when those women attended they are not able to complete the classes.

So we decided that, there was a problem but we needed to demystify the tech sector and show it’s not a sector just for men but it is also for women. We needed to build that confidence, we needed to build a community just for women, so they could actually realize they too have the capacity to participate actively in he sector.”

On his part, the Program Officer, Economic Diversification at SDN, Promise Johnbull stated that SDN under the Economic Diversification Pillar, seeks to diversify the Niger Delta economy from oil.

He said: “There is still a whole lot more to do but with what we have done, we have about 1,600 women that we have trained we believe that we have been able to a large extent, reduce the digital gender gap that we have in the Niger Delta. We want to look beyond oil and we believe they tech is the new gold, it’s an area where young people can invest, where young people can get skills and it can turn around the digital economy of the Niger Delta as a whole.”

One of the beneficiary who studied Data Analysis, Jolene Ogbuehi, a fresh graduate, said she was not aware of data analysis tools before she enrolled for training and thanked SDN.: “I expect to get more remote jobs and also impart knowledge to the younger generation who are interested in the field,” she stated.