The Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre, W.TEC, Nigeria

Titilayo lives in Nigeria and cares about women’s and girls’ issues.

She recently taught a group of girls how to blog so they can share their voices with the world.

From Lagos to Lahore to Louisville, people are using technology and social media to create social change.  Now, the United Nations Foundation and our partners have launched +SocialGood, a new community that connects innovators around a shared vision: using technology to make the world a better place.

Through +SocialGood, people in every part of the world can collaborate, share ideas, join events and harness technology to drive progress on the issues they care about.  Since its launch last week, the +SocialGood community has already grown to more than 800 members from across the United States and the world.

We hope you will join us.  It only takes a minute to sign up and to become part of a community for change. 

Visit plussocialgood.org to learn more.

Thank you,

Aaron Sherinian

@ASherinian
VP of Communications and Public Relations
United Nations Foundation

 
The W-Tec Technology Camp for Girls was fun! The Technology Camp for Girls is open to young girls in secondary schools between the ages of 11-17 years, who are already able to use a computer and are familiar with the Internet.

During the camp, the girls participated in technology workshops and leadership activities.Workshops include Graphic Design, Blogging, Movie-Making, Web Design and Introduction to Programming.

I [Titilayo Ama] facilitated the Blogging Session titled “Let’s Make a #Blog” where the young girls were taught all about blogging.

It was an amazing experience for not only the girls but for me also because I was truly impressed with the amount of knowledge the girls had and they were ready to learn more and believed that they didn’t have any barriers to what they can do with Technology.

The Blogging Session “Let’s Make a #Blog” had 2 sessions: The Theory Session and the Practical Session.

In the first Session, they learnt:

• What a Blog really is
• The Characteristics of Blogs
• The Anatomy of Blog [How to break down Blogs and also how to identify them]
• The differences between Blogs and Websites
• The Different Types of Blogs
• Reasons why people set up Blogs
• Free Hosting and Paid Hosting
• Blogging Platforms [Blogger, WordPress,etc]
• How Individuals, Organizations Can Use Blogs

and so much more …

In the Practical Session, the girls had a computer each to themselves so it was very easy for them to quickly put to practice what they had learnt during the theory class. To be honest, these young girls are really really smart.

The girls were taught how to create Email Addresses using Gmail, Powered by Google.  After that, they were shown the different ways to identify blogs created using free and paid hosting plans.

It was fun all the day and a lovely learning experience too. The girls created blogs using Blogger also powered by Google. They wrote their first blog post titled “My Experience at the W-TEC Camp”. It was an amazing experience no doubt.

Never heard of W-TEC?? W.TEC is a Nigerian non-governmental organization working for the economic and social empowerment of girls and women, using information and communication technologies (ICTs). Having chosen to focus on this area because statistical evidence has shown that in most African countries, women’s use and knowledge of ICTs (to store, share, organise and process information) is lower than men’s, denying them of income-generating opportunities and the chance to network with others.

Ore Somolu is the Executive Director of W-TEC.

I’m glad the young girls learnt how to create Blogs and how Blogs can be used to share their thoughts to the whole world.

Thanks for reading.
Titilayo Ama
@teeteelayo