IBM East Africa and Digital Opportunity Trust celebrate IBM-CSC’s 10th anniversary
Through our knowledge, tools and networks in Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) management we have been able to leverage USD 35 Million in funding. We wouldn’t have been able to access this funding had it not been for the strategies suggested by the CSC team — Doris Kaberia, Kenya Programme Director, Millennium Water Alliance & CSC Beneficiary.
To highlight the impact made by CSC teams in Kenya whose aim is to work with communities and institutions in service to humanity, IBM CSC together with implementing partner Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT), hosted beneficiary organizations in Nairobi Kenya to celebrate IBM CSC’s 10th anniversary. The highlight of this celebration was the presentation of Kenya’s Local Impact Assessment, which had evaluated 21 of the 28 projects undertaken in Kenya between 2010 and 2015. From this assessment beneficiary organizations recorded major improvements in their structure, strategy and operations following the month-long engagement with the CSC teams.
To kick off the celebration, IBM East Africa’s Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs Manager, Mildred Otsieno, welcomed IBM East Africa’s Country General Manager (CGM), Nick Nesbitt. In his address, the CGM applauded DOT in their role as an implementation partner since they had been able to clearly demonstrate the impact made on the ground as evidenced in the impact assessment. He also encouraged organizations at the event to explore the various programs run by IBM to identify further areas of collaboration.
In DOT’s Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Jane Jamieson’s, remarks she highlighted DOT’s initial engagement with IBM’s CSC program with the first deployment being in Turkey in 2009. Through her remarks shared by DOT’s Senior Regional Advisor (Africa) Muriuki Mureithi, Ms Jamieson called to mind the first deployment in Kenya in 2010 before expanding the DOT CSC engagement to include deployments in Sub-Saharan Africa. She applauded IBM for establishing the CSC program which has become a thought leader and set the standard for private sector organizations to provide support for national and regional development plans in an effort to drive social and economic transformation.
The assessment which was presented by Mr Mureithi, highlighted the various sectors the CSC teams comprising 11–15 volunteers worked; including education, health, women, youth, rural outreach, commerce, and governance. In these sectors the CSC teams worked with organizations from the public, non-profit and private sectors. Through their engagement, beneficiary organizations gained skills that would help employees become efficient and effective in their roles thereby helping their beneficiaries access services more easily. They also learned soft skills such as team work, establishing a strong organizational culture and enhancing communication among team members.
Following the presentation of this report, the representatives of the beneficiary organizations took the floor to share their experiences working with the CSC teams. One of the speakers was Rebecca Gitau of the Gender Violence Recovery Centre (GVRC), an organization established to provide medical treatment and psychosocial support to victims of gender based violence. She shared the great strides GVRC has made since hosting the CSC team in regards to data as a tool for gender based violence cases. Through the data management system GVRC developed, they have been able to help parliament implement two laws that protect victims of gender violence, they are also able to easily track the progress of victims as they go through treatment and seek justice against their perpetrators.
Through hosting this celebration, awareness was created within IBM East Africa staff who evidenced the ripple effect made by the CSC program in the lives of communities. The event which was hosted on the 6th of September 2017 is the first in a series of meetings to commemorate IBM CSC’s 10th anniversary celebration; DOT will be hosting a global webinar scheduled for later this month.
Are you interested in the work done by the IBM CSC/DOT partnership? Join the webinar through this link. Follow the conversation on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtags #DOTTalk and #IBMCSC
