Kenneth Woanyah: Fighting Violence with Education
In Ghana, one in three women are victims of domestic violence. Violence against women, and violence of all kinds, are more prevalent in rural areas where there are lower literacy rates and lower socio-economic standards. One entrepreneur, Kenneth Woanyah, has made this connection and aims to reshape paradigms around violence through education.
Kenneth Woanyah is the founder and CEO of SEEK International, a Ghanaian based NGO that aims to eliminate the ignorance around violence through empowering educative programs with a focus on literacy. SEEK is an acronym that stands for ‘Search Everything, Earn Knowledge’. Kenneth says that “most people choose their careers on what they know or don’t know” and thus education is key in shaping people’s careers and futures.
SEEK is an online tool that allows people access to educational content via computers, tablets or smartphones. Due to the high levels of unequal access to education between the rural and urban regions, the nature of SEEK allows remote areas of Ghana to have access to the same educational resources that can be found in urban areas.
Kenneth was drawn to Bridge for Billions as the program was designed so that people who are already working full time to still get the most out of the program. Kenneth had already begun developing his product with a small team in Ghana, but he said that since starting with Bridge for Billions he was able to begin structuring his organization more thoroughly and effectively. “After working for Bridge for Billions I have been able to put everything together and see the clear picture now.”
Kenneth’s mentor, Juan Martinez has worked across many sectors throughout his career and has recently pushed in the social business space. Juan focuses on the development of business models in moving away from donation bases and transition to self-sustaining models. Kenneth has had a very positive relationship with his mentor, and gained a lot of valuable information from him, especially concerning the finer details of the business sector. Kenneth hopes to maintain a relationship with Juan at the end of his incubation journey.
Although SEEK is still in the early stages of business development, Kenneth hopes to transplant his model into other countries across Africa, and eventually develop an offline model that can be distributed in even more remote communities without access to the Internet. Kenneth wants to develop and expand the content of the application so that it can be used across all levels of education, and so institutions can apply their own information and syllabuses into his software.
Kenneth is currently writing his first book and hopes to incorporate his passion for music into his program in the future, but for now he wants to focus on developing SEEK and creating change.
Want to start making an impact like Kenneth? Apply at Bridgeforbillions.org.
