Glimpse of the future

Yasmine is a four years who lives in the small village of Sheikh Moaaz ibn Gabal, half an hour from Luxor. A small village like hundreds of other upper Egyptian villages whose one notable advantage is a technology club established as a result of the influence of a parliament member who is a community leader in the village. Like many of the Upper Egyptian villages, women are under many tradition and society restrictions. They are discouraged from mingling with the male population and offered very limited opportunities.

Yasmine portrays the future of women in Egypt if given the opportunity to realize there potential The little girl confidently opens the computer, search for her favourite games and websites and enjoys herself enormously on the computer. She is eager to learn and explore the new world opened to her with information technology.

She provides much older female members of the village with much needed confidence that they too can easily learn to leverage IT to maximize there own potential and that of the community.

Microsoft Unlimited Potential Program provided training to ten female instructors in the village who in turn will train other community members. Through the train the trainer programs, the instructors will learn how to leverage ICT for the development of there community generally and the female population in particular.

If you are in Luxor, drop by to the village and look into the progress made by the women in Sheikh Moazz village, they plan to provide training in the Tech clubs to there fellow women – blocking the club for sole female usage for at least one day a week. Or like the ladies like to point out, for one day a week ‘to start with’.