Skills for their future
We work to help young people develop Skills for the future
About the project
Challenge
Women represent only 3 per cent of technology graduates globally. With Skills for Their Future, Theirworld works to empower girls and young women by helping them gain next generation digital, coding and entrepreneurship skills.
Approach
Theirworld partners with local organisations across Africa and the Middle East to help girls learn skills, schools deliver quality education and local companies offer work opportunities.
Impact
Skills for Their Future, and its predecessor programme Code Clubs, have helped more than 3,000 young women gain technology skills across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, and delivered training more than 100 teachers.
Narrowing the divide
By 2030, more than half of all young people will lack the basic skills necessary for the workforce. Girls and young women will be particularly left behind.
A gender divide persists that means education isn’t always available to young females, and they suffer as a result of stereotypical attitudes towards a female’s place in society. Generations of women have missed out on the options available to their male peers. Theirworld partners with local community organisations to work on bridging this divide.
In 2016 we started a Code Club programme that delivered play-based ICT and coding lessons to more than 1,300 girls and young women in Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria. Working alongside Code Academy and Kano, and attracting sponsorship from Facebook, we were able to scale the programme to also reach girls in Lebanon, including Syrian and Palestinian refugee students.
Girls can become unstoppable if they have digital skills.Lemmy Lucian, Technology Officer, BRAC Tanzania
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Seizing opportunity
Building on this success, Theirworld created a Digital Literacy curriculum in 2019 with a view to giving underserved students a clear path to becoming digitally skilled. As well as seeking to narrow the gender digital gap, the initiative’s aim is to ensure young people have the skills to harness technology and use it in their quest to build careers.
Partnerships with organisations who empower girls in local communities have helped us test and validate the Digital Literacy curriculum. For example, in Tanzania we work with Bringing Resources Across Communities (BRAC) to help deliver digital literacy & entrepreneurship education to 1,800 students, as well as training for 45 teachers.
We’re also working with the Tanzanian government to integrate the programme into the national curriculum, which would open up access to digital skills to even more overlooked students.
In Kenya & Nigeria we partner with Youth For Technology, and in Uganda we work alongside Women in Technology Uganda. The local links these partners provide can be invaluable in incorporating careers mentoring and events with private companies, so students are able to see the benefits beyond their school days.
Skills for Their Future – made possible by players of People’s Postcode Lottery – is an example of the big change we can unlock for underserved communities around the world. Theirworld wants to help the next generation of young women seize opportunity, reach their full potential and build rewarding lives
Our Partners
BRAC Tanzania
Bringing Resources Across Communities’ (BRAC) mission is to empower people and communities in situations of poverty, illiteracy, disease and social injustice.
Youth For Technology
Youth For Technology works to create learning communities through the use of technology, leading to opportunities for disadvantaged youth and women.
Women in Technology Uganda
Women in Technology Uganda offers digital & business skills training to women and girls, and a network that helps them into gainful employment.
Learn more at The Key: Theirworld’s comprehensive information toolkit on the global education crisis.
Education and girls
Girls’ education can break the cycle of poverty and create a healthier, wealthier and more educated family.
Explainer
Child marriage
Technology skills are changing the lives of these girls
