Women Championing Community Network Movement in Kenya
Highlighting women’s contribution to the development of community networks in Kenya.
Women have made significant contributions to the development and growth of community networks, with active involvement in organizing African Community Network summits, building awareness and capacity, and advocating for ICT policy changes and implementation that are crucial in bridging the digital divide.
In Kenya, women involved in community networks have achieved a great deal of success in bridging the digital divide — especially in unserved and underserved regions — that are worth highlighting. Through their efforts, they have been able to:
Capacity-build community networks. Women have played an integral role in planning and facilitating capacity-building sessions for community network organizations in Kenya. For example, in the recently concluded phase of the APC-Locnet project, under the capacity-building modules (note: the capacity-building modules were divided into 3 modules, namely local content creation, network and infrastructure, and sustainability), various women — such as Dotrilla Osimbo — played important roles such as planning and facilitating the Kenya National School of Community Networks and co-leading the local content creation module.
Here are but a few women and their contributions to the growth of community networks in Kenya:
Josephine Miliza
Josephine Miliza is a digital inclusion and community networks champion passionate about supporting communities to build resilient and scalable bottom-up connectivity models. She is among the pioneers of the community network movement in Africa and has co-founded Tanda Net, a community network in Kibera, Nairobi (Tanda Net is also the largest community network in East Africa). She serves as Africa Regional Coordinator for the Association of Progressive Communications-LOCNET, a project that aims to create an enabling ecosystem for the emergence and growth of community networks and other community-based connectivity initiatives in the global south.
Miliza is actively involved in promoting the community networks movement in Africa through organizing the Africa Community Networks Summit, awareness building, capacity building, and policy advocacy forums. Her current interests are in bottom-up sustainable connectivity models and creative approaches to an enabling environment that fosters resilience and innovation for communities in Africa.
Asya Nasser
Asya Nasser, together with her husband Twahir Hussein, co-founded Dunia Moja Community Network in Mtondia (a rural area in Kilifi County). She is actively involved in the managerial activities of the network, among them strategic planning and decision-making.
Asya is an avid believer in community networks because of how it helps people in her community “to interact with each other, stay connected with the outside world, and improve their lives through education and skills development.”
Asya’s main source of satisfaction and fulfillment as a member of Dunia Moja Community Network’s leadership team is “working with an amazing team of committed, passionate, and dedicated volunteers and the transformation and improvements that [the network] has had to the Mtondia community — especially to the children and schools around the area.”
In Mtondia, the children who live [here] have not been exposed to computer technology, but they show a lot of eagerness to the studies and how they implement what they have studied is usually remarkable…
Dunia Moja’s sister organization, Lamuka Hub, champions digital literacy among children through STEM bootcamps, exposes youth to the “global village”, and partners with vocational training centers to equip teachers with 21st-century educator skills. In this regard, Asya says “it’s so exhilarating the way the [Lamuka Hub’s] young learners grasp the knowledge and skills that they are empowered with.” She adds that “In Mtondia, the children who live [here] have not been exposed to computer technology, but they show a lot of eagerness to the studies and how they implement what they have studied is usually remarkable, and that gives Dunia Moja the drive to organize and host more kids’ STEM holiday bootcamps.”
Asya strongly believes that women should be at the forefront in championing community network initiatives because they can better relate to other women, and this will accelerate the process of digital inclusion — especially for grassroots women.
According to Asya, one of her biggest achievements is the ongoing work to improve and empower the people of Mtondia in simple yet meaningful ways — using the internet as a tool. She takes lead in assisting and empowering the women in their daily lives and educating young girls on menstrual hygiene. She is also an event coordinator and organizer.
Ruth Njeri
Ruth Njeri is a budding network engineer who currently works with Tanda Net Community Network. Even as the world strives to bridge the digital gap in technical fields, women from developing countries still find it difficult to join and thrive in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) professions. Njeri is among the few who have defied the odds. She attributes her sheer determination to succeed to the mentorship she receives from Tanda Net’s lead Engineers, Alphonce Odhiambo and David Ochiel.
Prior to joining Tanda Net, she studied Fundamentals of Designing and Deploying Computer Networks, an Internet Society-sponsored pilot project, having acquired a Diploma in Information Communication Technology at a local college. The former course gave her a platform to learn and build on her network engineering dexterity.
Ruth joined Tanda Net in June 2022 as an intern and was later absorbed into the team due to her competency and passion. Her daily tasks include monitoring and maintaining the performance of more than 40 nodes that the Community Network infrastructure is currently serving. She is also involved in active network deployments around Kibera which has given her quite a lot of experience in maintenance and troubleshooting.
She aspires to inspire more women to join the field of network engineering. She has been tested and her work has highly been appreciated by her mentors, including Josephine Miliza. She is also aspiring to be a system developer to enable her to solve problems relating to Community Networks. Her passion makes her spend most of her time doing research, learning and exploring technology and how she can enhance multiple benefits to the community in Kibera and other informal settlements.
Community networks put ownership in the hands of community members, hence, prompting them to take care of its infrastructure and management and maximize its meaningful usage.
Ruth Njeri strongly believes in community networks “because such networks put ownership in the hands of community members, hence, prompting them to take care of its infrastructure and management and maximize its meaningful usage.”
Risper Akinyi
Risper Akinyi is a Gender and Community Engagement expert with ardent conviction about community development through socio-economic empowerment. She is currently the gender and community engagement coordinator for the Tanda Net Community Network where she is involved in increasing digital outreach, women and their usage of connectivity, meaningful usage and utilization of connectivity, and conducting impact assessment studies of connectivity in the community. She has handled tech-centered, advisories and training on digital rights, digital advocacy, and digital protection and privacy. Her main focus is on gender justice, community capacity development, community research using human-centered design, stakeholder engagement, and public participation in policy-making.
Nancy Mwangi
Nancy Mwangi is a trainer of trainers (TOT) on ICT for Agriculture and gender-based violence champion who works for Ng’arua Maarifa Center, a community network based in Laikipia County. She is passionate about equipping farmers with knowledge and skills in modern farming techniques. She strongly believes that the use of technology in farming has so much potential for increasing yield for her local community farmers who greatly rely on traditional methods.
In addition, she educates her community members on the importance of public participation.
Dotrilla Osimbo
Dotrilla Osimbo is the convener of the monthly Kenya National School of Community Networks and Communities of Practice (CoP) training sessions. She has developed an interest in community networks and currently focuses on digital inclusion and advocacy, local content creation, and social protection. She is passionate about digital transformation and women’s economic empowerment.
Marceline Keya
Marceline Keya (yours truly) is the Community Engagement Lead at Kijiji Yeetu Community Network, a digital champion involved and working to promote digital literacy and access for women and girls in Kibera and Ugunja. Through the organization, I have trained over 1,000 women in digital skills and cyber hygiene. I’m an ardent advocate for policies that support gender equality in the digital space as well as debates that shape internet governance. In addition to my other roles at Kijiji Yeetu, I oversee matters of inclusivity in the community network space; this includes women and girls’ tech empowerment.
These successes demonstrate the important impact that women in community networks can have on their communities and the positive change they can drive. Through their hard work, dedication, and leadership, women in community networks are playing a critical role in promoting the growth and sustainability of community networks in Kenya and bridging the digital divide in Kenya.
There is still a need to have even more women championing the community network movement in Kenya in terms of participation and leadership in order to promote the development of more inclusive and equitable communities and how they can use community networks to address the gender digital divide.
Passionate women who might want to be part of the above-mentioned community networks as volunteers (both virtual and in-person) or advisors can reach out to them via their social media handles or websites.
