Women’s Digital Empowerment Training Suite by World Pulse

I have been working at Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) for the last 10 years under various programs and now I am handling Digikargha, a social enterprise that works towards the digital empowerment of weavers and artisans. I heard about World Pulse’s Global Premiere: Women’s Digital Empowerment Training Suite from our senior manager. I did a little research about them and got to know that World Pulse is an independent, women-led social network for social change. By harnessing the power of technology to accelerate women’s leadership, they are speeding up the pace towards gender equity. DEF is constantly working towards creation of information empowerment and equitable communities by providing digital access to information, knowledge and contextual capacity. The organisation’s main focus is to make technology easily accessible to the masses, to empower women, youth, differently abled and elderly through functional digital literacy, media literacy, and digital up-skilling across agriculture, micro and nano-business, health, education, livelihood, and entrepreneurship. I found this training could help us to learn some specific skills to serve our community, especially women artisans and weavers so I along with my other colleagues joined this webinar on 10th March 2022.  

World Pulse unveiled their new training suite: Women’s Digital Empowerment Training Suite which has 4 modules:

1. Basic Digital Literacy – It is for first time users of digital devices. It teaches them how to use digital devices and create their email addresses and use social media. 
2. Safety and Security – It covers topics related to how to surf and access content securely- for example creating passwords.
3. Digital Storytelling – This module focuses on methods of storytelling and how a platform like World Pulse can be used to share stories and bring positive and meaningful change in the community.
4. Online Advocacy – This helps channel one’s voice to meaningful campaigns and implementation and it also builds a community on the ground to sustain the change in a manner that lasts.  

The detailed workshops of 4 modules were divided in four different chat rooms so I was only able to attend the digital storytelling one. They have trained 150 digital ambassadors and those 150 ambassadors further trained 50,000  women through 3,000 training sessions in the last 2 years. They have received training in Basic Digital Literacy along with Sustainable Farming. They have also learnt how to sell their artisanal craft-based products online. The course also includes best practices in menstrual hygiene and the importance of speaking up against gender-based violence. They also discussed about SAAHAS, a mobile based app to fight against gender-based discrimination. 

World Pulse is open to sharing their modules and providing master trainers to organisations who want to deliver these training in their communities. 

At DEF, we are planning to work with World Pulse to see how digital women entrepreneurs become next level leaders and share their stories of inspiration to the rest of the world. The storytelling part of World Pulse is something that complements 20 years of DEF work and we all look forward to sharing widely.