Poverty and food insecurity increases vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and other diseases, which leads to underdevelopment. Lack of ICTs in the rural areas of Kenya that are relevant to the needs of the people contributes to inability by local rural communities to collect, preserve, and disseminate indigenous health and agricultural knowledge. The dilapidated road network, lack of electricity and unavailability of modern communication facilities such as telephone, Internet and email has rendered the rural farmers unable to access information on modern farming technologies and access to market outlets where they can sell their farm products. Lack of libraries and information resource centers within the rural areas denies the communities access to the most needed information. With the high levels of understaffing and under-funding in most government departments, access of extension services to the farmers by the Ministry of Agriculture remains a perennial problem. This has left the communities with radio, arts, and storytelling as the most available and affordable means of information access and dissemination.

Women make up more than 80% of farmers in rural Kenya yet they are marginalized in terms of access to modern farming methods, credit facilities, business skills and marketing of their products. The gender disparities and discourse taboos which reduce the role of women to that of housekeeping, childbearing, and providing labour on the very farms to which they cannot claim ownership has not only impacted negatively on rural agricultural development, but also heightened rural poverty. The high levels of illiteracy, particularly among women and girls, have rendered them incapable of competing with their male counterparts for job opportunities, thus making them more vulnerable to prostitution as a means of social and economic survival.

Development of relevant ICTs in the rural areas therefore is the only way forward if we hope to sustain rural agricultural productivity, address the gender disparities, and ameliorate the widespread health and poverty problems in the rural areas of Kenya.

As one of 9 winners of the GenARDIS grant for 2003, KAIPPG implemented its pilot project on integration of ICTs in HIV/AIDS prevention, gender empowerment, and agricultural improvements. The results of this initiative were quite striking and proved that ICTs can add value to the existing projects and speed up an understanding of gender equity, agricultural development, and the amelioration of rural poverty. The lessons learnt from this pilot initiative were widely disseminated through print and electronic media, and also workshops. The current project build on the ICT activities initiated in Western Kenya by KAIPPG under the GenARDIS round 1 funding.

The KAIPPG staff, Ministry of Agriculture Extension Workers, officers from the local Community Radio Station—Sayare FM, and trained community based volunteers facilitated the implementation of this project.

Three Community awareness workshops were first conducted as part of the routine fieldwork for other projects run by KAIPPG so as to identify and recruit potential project facilitators. The workshops reached about 200 people from diverse backgrounds. 3 community groups, comprising of 40 members each, were identified in the community, where this project was to be implemented. The groups selected to participate in the project were New Vision AIDS Prevention Group, Shibale Group Against AIDS and Musokoto Farmers Self Help Group. 12 communities’ volunteer group leaders were selected from the groups and subjected to a 5-day training of trainers (ToTs) on information production and management in a residential workshop. The selection was done along age and gender considerations. The training was based on KAIPPG’s standard curriculum for Training of Trainers in Information Communication Technologies for Rural Development, developed during the implementation of GenARDIS I Project. Adaptations were done to cover all key topics within the five days. The training was be geared towards imparting the community volunteers with the necessary skills on:
• How to use the various ICT equipment and media such as radio, TV, camera and mobile phones;
• Information gathering, content packaging and validation, dissemination and storage
• Audio production and editing information
• How to manage the information kiosks, documentation of events, and how to manage production and distribution of simple information materials.
• Basic computing skills.

The training utilized both lecture and adult learning, problem posing, psychosocial, participatory and learner centered approaches.

The participants were selected from the target communities based on their capability to write simple documents/ reports, ability to speak in public and their skills in writing and production of information materials. In addition to KAIPPG staff, other course facilitators were drawn from the Sayare Media Company in Eldoret, who were more experienced in production of community radio programs. Prior to the workshop facilitators were oriented to the training curriculum so they could make any changes on it to suite the objectives of the training.

The direct project beneficiaries were 120 people--mainly women and girls, affected by HIV/AIDS, who usually happen to be smallholder farmers. 18 men were also considered in order to enhance joint ownership of the project. The project beneficiaries were drawn from households affected by and individuals infected with HIV/AIDS, caregivers of persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAS), widows, older orphans and small-holder women farmers’ groups. The age range for participants was 20-55, which is the typical productive age in Kenya.

Women make up more than 80% of farmers in rural Kenya yet they are marginalized in terms of access to information on modern farming methods, preservation of traditional knowledge, especially in agriculture and traditional healing methods, health information, resources on rural development issues, nutritional empowerment, credit facilities, business skills and marketing.
Due to poor connectivity and unavailability of electricity in rural Kenya there is lack of relevant and affordable ICTs for rural farmers. This contributes to lack of the needed information and knowledge on proper agricultural practices, gender, poverty reduction strategies, and also contributes to inability by local rural communities to collect, preserve, and disseminate indigenous health and agricultural knowledge.

There is unequal access to ICT training opportunities between men and women, and boys and girls, which has contributed to the females lagging behind their male counterparts in terms of competing for the ICT opportunities offered on the current job market and utilizing other ICT-enabled services. The inappropriateness of the ICTs products available in the rural Kenya has reduced the effectiveness and active involvement of women and girls in ICT-related services and opportunities.

Women have not to date been able to adequately advocate for their own needs and express their own views on issues of importance and concern to them, to their families, and to their communities. This project partly aimed at ensuring that ICTs were used to help women become advocates and activists for their own needs

Yes.

a) To produce several copies of the information themes that have already been developed on tapes and CD-ROMS. T

b) To develop more information themes, packaging them on tapes and CD-ROMS sharing them with other GenARDIS Partners, radio stations as well as other like minded institutions.

c) To translate these themes into other languages such as French so they can be used as widely as possible.

d) Currently in the process of discussing the project outputs with some potential funders to facilitate scale up of the project and achievement of the steps described above.

There exists in Kenya a wide digital divide between the rural and urban, men and women, boys and girls, as well as the rich and the poor.

There is a need for Kenya to move faster to implement the just developed ICT policy so as to address the above divide and the vulnerable position of women in ICT access, affordability, attractiveness and utilization.#

It would be advisable to integrate ICTS in all development programs so as to demistify it.#