Over 4000 women and girls benefit from UK funded digital skills project

By Onjefu Odaudu

Over 4, 000 women and girls have benefited from the UK funded DigiGirls programme.

The programme is an initiative of Cybersafe Foundation and was funded through the UK Government’s Digital Access Programme.

Participants graduated with basic and intermediate level workplace digital skills. The programme also indirectly benefited over 10,000 additional women through the ‘train-the-trainer’ programme.

The DigiGirls program aims to lower the digital gender imbalance against women in Nigeria by empowering more women and girls with employable digital skills through intensive training, mentorship, internship/job placements, and entrepreneurship opportunities. The learning paths for the program include Digital marketing, UI/UX, graphics design, E-commerce, and Data analysis.

In her remarks at the virtual graduation event for the DigiGirls 2.0 beneficiaries held on Tuesday Alessandra Lustrati, Head of Digital Development and Global Lead of the Digital Access Programme in the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), highlighted the huge potential of Nigeria’s digital economy, recalling that the ICT sector was the fastest growing sector of Nigeria’s economy in 2020 and 2021, and is estimated to contribute 16.2% of Nigeria’s GDP at the first quarter of 2022.

Founder, and Executive Director of Cybersafe Foundation, Confidence Staveley, thanked the UK government for their continuous support in making the program a success and improving the lives of the beneficiaries.