By Ozumi Abdul
Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) in partnership with Visually Ethnographic Network (VEN) on Saturday concluded their seven-week training on phone repairs for young women and girls in the Sani Manaige community of Kano state.
In his opening remarks, the Executive Director of CITAD, Engr Yunusa Zakari Ya’u highlighted that the trainees would be provided with working tools to achieve their desired objectives.
He pointed out that, research indicates that, women are more exposed to poverty due to a lack of equal opportunities with men, adding that GSM repairs is one of the major catalysts to reducing unemployment.
“We simplified the process for women by training them to become self-reliant and make GSM repairs accessible for women within their communities”
Dr Ya’u said the center would follow up to ensure adequate utilization of resources and provide solutions to any problem that may arise.
Speaking earlier, Professor Abdella Uba Adamu stated that the purpose of the training was to empower young women and girls in order to develop their skills in repairing mobile phones and smartphones.
Professor Abdella noted that the training has become imperatively important due to the state’s peculiar cultural situations.
He said he noticed that a lot of people now have access to mobile phones, where mobile phones have now become commodities, something that is necessary for security, well-being, and effective relationship.
He noted that women mostly in the northern region are usually left behind in terms of the management of new technologies, either because they have been intimidated not to accept it, or they are not good at handling them.
“Visually Ethnographic Network, that is my research company decided to collaborate with CITAD to see what we can do to improve the usage and repairs of phones by these women.
” One of the things that Visually Ethnographic Network noticed is that if a smartphone owned by a woman spoilt and needs to be repaired, because of cultural reasons she wouldn’t go to the place where they will repair it because of the young boys out there.
“So normally they will give the phone to their brothers, to their sons or husbands, or even somebody around, there are a lot of security implications involved”, he said.
He stated that the need for women’s secrets to be protected, whether good or bad is very important, adding that it’s their business whether they are doing something illegal or legal is their business in as much as the long arms of the law have not caught them.
He noted that women are usually caught off when they are phones are taken out for repairs, and that their secrets are very vulnerable, especially their financial transactions.
Professor Abdella then revealed that these are reasons why his organization in partnership with CITAD decided to come up with pieces of training for women in phone repairs and empowerment since it’s women that know the pains of another woman.
He exuded the confidence that women can be successful in phone repairs and other technologies because they are as intelligent as their male counterparts.
Also speaking was the coordinator of the program, Hajiya Hafsat Mukhtar Muhammad.
She said that the participants have achieved a lot, noting that women are totally written off by several people.
She said practical sessions were conducted during the last lapse of the training, where the participants repaired technical aspects of phones.
She then thanked CITAD and VEN for organizing such a life-changing workshop for the participants.
