Celebrating IWD in a Village: Will Safe Spaces Help in Bridging The Digital Divide

Looking at the faces of the women as I explained what digital literacy means and why it is an important skill in today's world, I pondered on two things: 1) If safe spaces are enough for these women to thrive in a community and environment like the one where  I choose to celebrate the International Women's Day, 2) Could a safe space be a potential "ideal solution" to bridging the huge digital divide at the grassroots?.

The community where I carried out my World Pulse Trainathon event and celebrated my 2023 International Women's Day (IWD) is a village called Umuoda Nguru in Aboh Mbaise Local Government Area (LGA) of Imo State in Nigeria.  A predominantly Igbo race, farming is one of the main occupation of the people living in Umuoda Nguru. Imo State is one of the five states that make up the South-East geopolitical zone in Nigeria. The reason I choose to celebrate this year's IWD in a village is due to fact that majority of Igbo female genders from South-East have to contend with numerous degrading, oppressive, and discriminatory cultural practices which grossly impede their rights and the poor level of internet accessibility in most rural communities in Nigeria which contributes to most women falling behind in skills acquisition opportunities. In addition, I want many women in rural communities to feel the "Pulse" of World Pulse and not just "feeling" it but to also understand why they need to embrace technology irrespective of their age.

Most of the time, when we organize a training workshop in a village, you can almost feel the impact-from the joyous look on the women's faces to their eagerness to learn as well as their resolve to leave the poverty cycle especially when they ask you lots and lots of questions :).

One major challenge in common when we organize training workshops is that more than half of these women do not have enough money to travel down to towns close to them to undergo a training, so they would rather wait for it when it happens. And you wonder in your mind, "How often does these training workshops happen in their community?."

 It's heartwarming to see women in their late seventies turn up for our training workshops and ask us after the workshops, when we are going to come again for another training.

Safe spaces are meant to be free of bias, conflicts, judgments, criticism, harassments, potentially threatening ideas and harm whether emotional or physical. You may wonder why I'm thinking along this line. I'm thinking along this line because of what World Pulse stands for and how many connections, opportunities, training workshops have taken place at the grassroots because of World Pulse.

In most rural communities, there are lots of complex factors to consider when it comes to creating safe spaces or joining one. Cultural bias is one of the factors. Cultural bias plays a huge role and working with the women closely in rural communities can encourage them to open up on their challenges and this is where I think safe spaces might help in bridging digital divide at the grassroots. The women from South-East have experienced an overwhelming level of disadvantages based on discriminatory cultural practices which appear deeply rooted in the Igbo cultural system, including some laws and policies that seem crafted to undermine their ability to maximize political and economic potentials.

While safe spaces are "good" in terms of allowing people to freely express themselves, it can also make some people uncomfortable. However, leveraging on safe spaces to help bridge the huge digital divide might be much more helpful than we envisage.