Anne Ikiara

ANNE IKIARA

Age: 45 years old
Position at Telecentre: General Manager
Years in Service (at current telecentre): 8 years
Years in Service (at current position): 8 years
City: Nairobi
Country: Kenya

Telecentre/Employer Information

Name of Telecentre: Nairobi Trust
Country: Kenya
Region: Africa
Name of Nominating Individual/Entity: Rukia Sebit

Background:

Anne Ikiara has been the Manager of Nairobi Trust organization for the last 8 years. She started working with Nairobi Trust when the organization had the capacity to train only 20 trainees at any one time, was cash strapped and didn’t even have a clear concept. She joined Nairobi Trust when the organization was experiencing financial, concept and management challenges. In only 8 years, Anne has not only been able to steer Nairobi Trust from these challenges but has also managed to package an award winning concept that has found relevance across the Eastern African Region in Uganda, Tanzania, Zanzibar and Ethiopia.

She has also been able to transform the organization from one training center with only 20 training computers to eight training centers with the capacity of training 100 trainees at any one time in Kenya alone. In the region, Nairobits is also replicated in Zanzibar www.zanzibits.com, in Kampala in Uganda www.kampabits.org, in Addis Ababawww.addisbits.org and in Musoma in Tanzania. The combined training capacity for all these training centers is more that 200 trainees at any one time.
Anne’s responsibilities have been packaging and refining the concept, fundraising for the same, management of the center and staff development, supervision of the replication of the center across the region and managing the gender component of the program. Managing the gender component is critical in ensuring that women and girls are not marginalized in the recruitment, retention and progression of the training.

Anne is also responsible for making sure that the concept and the training of Nairobi Trust remains relevant to the needs of the industry owing to the versatility of ICT. This has been done by working with the private sector that act as partner in the training to ensure relevance and efficiency. Further to ensure that the community empowerment, sustainability and ownership of the training telecenters, Anne is also responsible for making sure that the telecenters involve the community in which they are located. As such, the telecenters that Nairobits operates are stationed in the non formal settlements and the community takes part in their management.

Contribution to Digital Literacy and Community Development:

Under Anne, Nairobi Trust has helped more than 7,500 youth across the African region to acquire digital literacy. Out of these, more than 90% of them are positively engaged in the ICT sector. Nairobi Trust concept in the region involves working with Community based organizations (CBOs). The CBOS in non formal settlements manage part of the training in the telecenters and taking part in the recruitment of the trainees. As a result, their capacity is developed and the beneficiaries also give back to their sponsoring CBO by training other youth in ICT hence ensuring a bigger impact. Please seewww.nairobits.com

Nairobi Trust has also used ICT as a means to address other challenges that the marginalized youth have to deal with. Nairobi Trust trains youth in entrepreneurship and life skills using ICT with excellent results.ICT enables entrepreneurship training to take place in a youth friendly manner and as a result, the uptake of the same is encouraging. Specifically, Nairobi Trust is successful in having about 60% of the trained youth start their own business. The same can be said of reproductive health and life skills. Traditionally in Africa, sex and sexuality is a taboo subject. The social set up that enabled this subject to be addressed in the correct setting has since broken down. As a result of this, the youth are left with no knowledge and skills to deal with their sexuality. Unfortunately, the HIV and AIDS challenge affects this group most. Nairobi Trust in partnership with the World Population foundation trains youth in an innovative electronic sexual reproductive health curriculum dubbed the world starts

Leadership, Partnership and Resource Mobilization:

Anne is a leader per excellence. Within eight years, Nairobi Trust has grown from a relatively unknown organization to a regionally and indeed internationally organization. Under Anne, Nairobi Trust has won several international and National awards the latest being the Kenya MDG Trust award for Nairobi Trust contribution in youth empowerment www.nairobits.com
The success of the Nairobits concept has been through partnerships with several other organizations both at the grass root and in the private sector levels. Nairobi Trust works with 28 Community Based Organizations (CBOs) that have their roots within the non format settlements. They take part in the recruitment, supervision and engagement of trained youth. Further still, some of them take part in the management of the 7 Tele centers that Nairobits trains youth in.

Anne also has forged partnerships with 34 companies in the ICT sector. These companies provide the much needed insight into the requirements of the market. ICT being versatile, the private sector takes part in the curriculum development and revision and also act as guest teachers. After the training, they offer internships to the trained students. Through the initiative of Anne, Nairobits has partnered with several parties internationally to set up tele centers of Nairobi Trust across the region in Zanzibar www.zanzibits.com , Uganda www.kampabits.org , Ethiopia www.addisbits.org and an information center in Musoma, Tanzania.
Running of Telecenters comes with very many challenges. Funding has been a challenge, so has been getting enough girls to join the training. Besides, there has also been the challenge of ensuring train in courses relevant to the market.

To gather enough resources, Anne made contacts and partnerships with many like minded organizations across the world that found value in the work of Nairobi Trust . This has enabled Nairobi Trust move from a cash strapped organization to one that had about 40 million shillings last financial year. This has been possible through efficiency and effectiveness both in programming and management and ensuing impact on the lives of beneficiaries. Innovative use of funds through working with communities to create ownership and sustainability has also been a contributor to the efficient use of available resources. Anne has packaged a program that involves partnerships with community based organizations to set up telecentres within their organizations. The Community Based Organizations (CBOS) contribute the space and everyday management while Nairobits provided the equipment the expertise needed for the training to succeed.

The challenge of getting girls to join stay and make it in ICT has been surmounted by having a gender sensitive recruitment process, positive role modeling, mentoring and affirmative action.
To ensure course taught are relevant to the market, the tele center worked very closely with the private sector to check the relevance of the courses. Training with and not for the market has enabled Nairobi Trust to have an almost 100% success rate in placing the youth in Jobs after only one year of training. This has made it relatively easier to find partners since it has been possible to demonstrate impact.