The strength of ICT amidst the global pandemic of Covid – 19 has been loudly spelt out as it remained unshaken ever since the emergence of this global pandemic but becomes the commodity for every home and organization as it stands the only unaffected medium to share information, transact businesses, entertainments and working as a team. This has no doubt pleased ICT advocates across the global for this supports their campaign and advocacy work for the world to embrace the use of technology tools for better performance and timely delivery of team tasks.

The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) as a non-governmental and non-for-profit organization has since continue to capitalize on its core mandate; using ICTs for development to initiate engagements to curb the spread of Covid – 19 pandemics. Twitter series is one of such engagements run by CITAD, it comes twice in a week; Tuesdays and Thursdays, lasting for an hour. Resource persons are invited to talk on the chosen topic and they also respond to questions by the participants.

Youth Effort in Combating Covid – 19 at Community Level in Kano is the topic discussed on Thursday, 8^th October, 2020 with Abubakar M. Usman, multi media journalist and a beneficiary of CITAD’s youth leadership training on Covid – 19. He took the participants through the success stories youth effort recorded, taking Kano state as a case study, challenges encountered and what needs to be done to support youth effort to deliver more.

Below is the crude chat as extracted from the twitter flatform:

1. Hello everyone, do join me to welcome our today’s twitter chat guest, Abubakar M Usman, a multi-media journalist and @ICTAdvocates beneficiary of #YLTonCovid19 who will discuss on Youth Efforts on Combatting Covid19 at Community Level in Kano? Thanks to everyone, am glad to be here today
2. Please sir can you start by telling us the kind of activities you are doing at community level? Well, after been trained by @ICTAdvocates I designed my activities to reach 100 people in community for the Sensitization against
3. What kind of activities did you conducted after the training, sir? Considering the kind of community am living in, I re-strategized my activities by inviting 6 youth association leaders for a step-down training.
4. Because I believe using young people for the sensitization would help to reach a number of people at grass root level.
5. After the step-down training, all of them gave me a set date for the step-down training on their various members at organizational level.
6. My activities have been divided into four different days
7. The first activity carried out at Ibn Yasar Islamiyya at Rimin Kebe area of Ungogo local government. 26 students were sensitized, while 4 hand sanitizers & 150 pieces of face mask were distributed to the school authority.
8. While the second group involved 14 elderly men at Galula Primary health care.
9. The third activity according to my work plan, held on 19th Sept. 2020 at Gadar-Katako area of Romin Kebe community, 20 young people were reached for the awareness on the danger of #Covid_19
10. The last activity consists of two groups; the First group consists of 35 women which were sensitized at Galula Primary health care clinic in Rimin Kebe.
11. These are the four different activities I carried in Rimin Kebe to convert the effect of #Covid_19   at the community level.
12. so far how far have your impacts and success stories from the community as a result of the covid 19 awareness in the grass root? Initially, I can say majority members of my community doesn’t believe in the existence of #Covid_19, thanks to @ICTAdvocates intervention. Initially, my intention was to reach 100 people but at the end of the sensitization I reach almost 200 people, while many are asking for more intervention on the Corona pandemic. So, after the Sensitization, we have positive behavioural changes among the community members, like the use of face mask, observing social distancing and many more protocols of #Covid_19
13. Can you tell us the perception of the community people when you started the activities and how you were able to changed their previous belief on the virus? Initially, people didn’t pay much attention on the program, but after I trained those 20 young people, they continue carrying the message to their family & friends, which I believe change their perception on the program.
14. Mr @official_Rabab organizing such sensitizations requires some support, including the financial, materials and even the human resources. So how did you get funds to carry out such activities?
15. what are some of the challenges you encountered at the course of your advocacy and please suggest ways you think, that need improvement? One of the challenges I faced during the sensitization/advocacy is that, the head of the town of Galula didn’t really give us maximum cooperation.
16. I have to write a letter using @ICTAdvocates logo on it for him to allow us to carried out activities in his area, in the future a letter of advocacy or introduction should be given to sub-grantees by @ICTAdvocates because it will help to achieve desired goals.
17. do you think there is still need for youth to do more in their effort to fight #Covid19 in Kano state and beyond? Of course, youth should be carried along to continue passing the right information on #Covid_19, because they have a big role to play in fighting the pandemic.
18. What other external support do youth need to better champion the course of fighting this #Covid19 pandemic? For now, distribution of hand sanitizers and face mask will help a lot, because even after the Sensitization many people are calling me for hand sanitizers and face masks. #CITADagainstCovid19
19. there were lot of misinformation and disinformation at early period of the pandemic, do you come across any in your community? how do you come about it? #CITADAgainstCovid19 Of course I did, some members of my community were saying #Covid_19 only affects rich people while others said NGOs are the one that brought the pandemic into the country.
20. There are many misinformation about #Covid_19 so, government as well as non-governmental organization have to work on this.
21. As we are approaching the end of this discussion, can you tell us the challenges you faced while doing your campaign and some of your recommendations to @KanostateNg and people to ensure we win this fight in the state

 

 

Two days ago, a team of staff of CITAD went to Shara in Sumaila local government area of Kano to conduct a COVID-19 sensitization programme for teachers and students as well as parents of Shara Primary School, a community school that CITAD and the community established about four years ago.

Although enrolment had increased but we found a number of the girls had dropped out. In response to the unvocalized question of our team members, the Community leader said that they had been married off.

They were still to be functionally literate and painfully they had reached the end of their education pursuit. It also in a way marked the end of the chance for them to get formal entrepreneurship and vocational education. And today we here talking about digital gender inclusion in a context that girls horizons are not even given the chance to see beyond the primary school. These Shara girls have been digitally excluded because digital inclusion requires functional literacy. Without being literate, they cannot interact with the various devices (or at least many of them) as to get the best from access to information technology.

But Shara is only one instance at which you are painfully exposed to the trajectory that tells you how far behind women are left digitally. The lookdown presented another question. CITAD undertook a research and found a dramatic increase in incidence of domestic violence during the period of the lockdown. While technology provides a mean for victims to communicate to the outside world, for assistance, support, remedy, many of these women suffered, locked in their homes because they could not access technology to come to their aid.

Three key issues were responsible for this. First, like the Shara girls, women in general have lesser opportunities to acquire education than men. And as the point made earlier, without education you cannot make effective use of the treasure that is online. The second is that women are generally socially, economically, educationally and politically marginalized and therefore on are generally poorer. They constitute the great majority of the people living below the poverty line in the country. This is why a number of researchers around poverty say that poverty has a feminine face in Nigeria. The effective use of technology is dependent upon affordability. With more women poorer, they are less able to afford technology and hence end up unable to access and it us.

The third point is about social norms in the society. Social norms as articulated round the vestiges of patriarchy condition and frame the way in which technology in inserted in society and used by both men and women. Women are generally discouraged from using internet at two levels. At one level, women, especially married ones, are not supposed to communicate outside circles of people with who their husbands may not be comfortable with. This patriarchal social expectation in the communication scope of women expect them not indulge in “frivolous” communication and should therefore not be seen to using the social media and even the internet as a whole. If they must use the internet, they should use it sparingly. Stories, some of which may be anecdotal, have it that many marriages have collapsed on account of the wives using social media.

Patriarchy society does not expect a married woman to have a male friend, talk less of hundreds, if not thousands Facebook friends, many of how she probably does not know offline. She would have many “followers’’ on twitter and belongs to several chat groups on whataspp. All these would be frown at. This aspect of patriarchy is about control of the woman’s communication sphere by man.

The second level at which patriarchy operates is a mirror image of the control level which is that women are seen as objects of pleasure, lacking subjectivity of their own. This is at the root of gender based violence in society. Gender based violence is not limited to the physical space or offline relationships. It is also reflected in online behavior, giving rise to the concept of gender based violence online.

While social control seeks to place restriction on the use of internet by women, gender based violence online creates fears that make women to not want use the internet. Like gender based violence offline, online violence against women tends to be less visible. In fact it is less visible than offline violence, because it takes place mostly at the private level. For this reason, there is little attention about it and in some cases the resistance to accept that in fact it is a major problem.

But there is also an addition dimension that is often overlooked which is about access to policy structures in the society. These structures shape the ways we live, including the way we access and use technology. These structures act in such a way as to exclude women and their input in the policy making process. This has two effects on the types of polices we get. First, men who are dominant players in the policy making environment do not experience gender digital marginalization and therefore do not understand as to make effective policies to address it. Secondly, women who experience digital marginalization do have knowledge and experience of technology that could make them provide sound policies to address their exclusion. Either way we end up with inadequate policies that do not solve the problem,

One specific aspects of gender marginalization that is upon lost to men is about gender harassment online. As it is directed at women, men hardly see and is therefore invisible. You do not address an invisible problem. And so to the majority policy makers, this problem hardly merits attention. Yet, it is core to addressing digital exclusion of women for it works two ways. One, women fear the internet because of the online harassment and withdraw as well as internalize this fear to the point that it becomes instrumental for their distancing from technology. On the other hand, men use it to point to the need to protect their wives, sisters and daughters from this danger by erecting a barrier against the use of the internet by women. The result is that the two reinforce each other and serve to widen the digital marginalization of women.

As we mark this Media Day of Action against Gender Digital Exclusion, I would like to invite us to a handshake across the table to understand the pains of digital exclusion not just on gender lines about for the whole society, resulting from leaving women digitally behind. To do that, we must accept certain realities. One of this is that the exclusion of women in the policy spaces and other digital space spaces is not accidental. It is the construction and imagining of these spaces as masculine by patriarchy.

Second, acquiring ICT in itself does not in itself effectively contribute to addressing the gender digital divide without addressing the negative representation and portrayal of women online.
We have to engage in a handshake that has to bring both men and women into a mutual dialogue on technology deconstruct the myths around the internet. Men and women work together to discuss how the internet is a tool that can help rather than subvert family structures. Ultimately, men and women have to work together to overcome the constraints that patriarchy has placed before women in the use of technology. The handshake is not an easy conversation. On the part of males it signals acceptance to give up on some privileges while for women, it requires rethinking of normalized ideas.

Coviid19 is a world deadly disease that threatened the survival of every human being. From the start of the pandemic in 2019 in Wuhan, China, millions of people have lost their lives, jobs, livelihood and many more. In Nigeria, the pandemic has also affected many ways of our lives being it social, economic or academic with more than 40,000 infection and more than 1000 deaths which resulted to the lockdown of the whole country for many months. Similarly, in Kano state the story is also the same, since before the index case in April the state government has took many measures in order to protect the lives of its people by banning interstate movement.

However, on its efforts to help in eradicating the disease in Kano state, the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has been conducting different programs to sensitize community members on the importance of adhering to covid19 protocols. These programs include online campaigns on twitter (Twitter Chat), Facebook, Whatsapp, production of online fliers, radio programs at different radio stations, writing of press releases and training of more than 100 youth on covid19 protocols online.

On the 13^th and 14^th of October, 2020 also the Centre for information Technology and Development with support of MacArthur Foundation and International Institute of Education trained Kano state secondary and primary schools female teachers on Covid19 Protocol. The aims of the training was to equip the teachers with all the necessary knowledge on preventive measures of Covid19 as school resumed; to sensitize the teachers on the importance of Covid19 protocol; educate them on how to take care of themselves and their students.

The training drew 60 female teachers from different schools in the state who are expected to go back and step down the training to their fellow teachers and students.

On his vote of thanks, the Director Recruitments and Training, Kano State Senior secondary Schools Management Board (KSSSMB), Malam Umar Muhammad Yakasai thanks Centre for Information Technology and Development for its tireless efforts in improving the lives of Kano state people. He noted that the Centre has on many occasions been training the staff of the Board on different ICT courses. He went further to call on the trained teachers to ensure they transfer the knowledge to the larger society.

On Tuesday, 6^th October, 2020, on its 51^st edition of twitter chat, the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has hosted Malam Abdurrahman Iguda, Public Health Advocate and Climate Action Ambassador as a discussant. Malam Iguda discussed on the topic “Youths Effort in Combating Covid 19 at Community Level (II).”  Since the erupt of the Coronavirus pandemic CITAD embarks on organizing twitter chat discussions and has been inviting eminence people to discuss on different topics related to the pandemic.  Iguda was part of the CITAD’s Youth Capacity Building Training organized by the centre in collaboration with MacArthur Foundation and Centre for International Institute of Education to fight Coronavirus at community level in Kano State.

The chat dwelled deeply on the commitments and campaigns made by youths in Kano since the beginning of this Pandemic to address the risks associated with it in their communities.  The discussant recalled during the early days of the pandemic how friends from Kaduna called him just to hear about Kano and offered suggestions in order to prevent the spread of the virus.  Lots of rumors and misinformation circulated online, me and friends who are known to be social media influencers worked hard in converting the misinformation and share up to date and valid information on COVID19 in Kano state. The discussant stressed that actors should emulate from CITAD experience to support youth in order to do more to fight the pandemic.

 

1. Hello everyone, Do join me to welcome our today’s twitter chat guest, Abubakar M Usman, a multi-media journalist and @ICTAdvocates beneficiary of #YLTonCovid19 who will discuss on Youth Efforts on Combatting Covid19 at Community Level in Kano? Thanks to everyone, am glad to be here today

 

2. Please sir can you start by telling us the kind of activities you are doing at community level? Well, after been trained by @ICTAdvocates i designed my activities to reach 100 people in community for the Sensitization against
3. What kind of activities did you conducted after the training, sir? Considering the kind of community am living in, i re-strategized my activities by inviting 6 youth association leaders for a step down training.

 

4. Because i believe using young people for the sensitization would help to reach a number of people at grass root level.

 

5. After the step down training, all of them gave me a set date for the step down training on their various members at organizational level.

 

6. My activities have been divided into four different days

 

7. The first activity carried out at Ibn Yasar Islamiyya at Rimin Kebe area of Ungogo local government. 26 students were sensitized, while 4 hand sanitizers & 150 pieces of face mask were distributed to the school authority.

 

8. While the second group involved 14 elderly men at Galula Primary health care.

 

9. The third activity according to my work plan, held on 19th Sept. 2020 at Gadar-Katako area of Romin Kebe community, 20 young people were reached for the awareness on the danger of #Covid_19

 

10. The last activity consists of two groups; the First group consists of 35 women which were sensitized at Galula Primary health care clinic in Rimin Kebe.

 

11. These are the four different activities I carried in Rimin Kebe to convert the effect of #Covid_19   at the community level.

 

12. So far how far have your impacts and success stories from the community as a result of the covid 19 awareness in the grass root? Initially, i can say majority members of my community doesn’t believe in the existence of #Covid_19, thanks to @ICTAdvocates intervention. Initially, my intention was to reach 100 people but at the end of the sensitization i reach almost 200 people, while many are asking for more intervention on the Corona pandemic. So after the Sensitization, we have positive behavioral changes among the community members, like the use of face mask, observing social distancing and many more protocols of #Covid_19

 

13. Can you tell us the perception of the community people when you started the activities and how you were able to change their previous belief on the virus? Initially, people didn’t pay much attention on the program, but after i trained those 20 young people, they continue carrying the message to their family & friends, which i believe change their perception on the program.

 

14. Mr @official_Rabab organizing such sensitizations requires some support, including the financial, materials and even the human resources. So how did you get funds to carry out such activities?

 

15. What are some of the challenges you encountered at the course of your advocacy and please suggest ways you think, that need improvement? One of the challenges i faced during the sensitization/advocacy is that, the head of the town of Galula didn’t really give us maximum cooperation.

 

16. I have to write a letter using @ICTAdvocates logo on it for him to allow us to carry out activities in his area, in the future a letter of advocacy or introduction should be given to sub-grantees by @ICTAdvocates bcoz it will help to achieve desired goals.

 

17. do you think there is still need for youth to do more in their effort to fight #Covid19 in Kano state annd and beyond? Of course, youth should be carried along to continue passing the right information on #Covid_19, because they have a big role to play in fighting the pandemic.

 

18. What other external support do youth need to better champion the course of fighting this #Covid19 pandemic? For now, distribution of hand sanitizers and face mask will help a lot, because even after the Sensitization many people are calling me for hand sanitizers and face masks. #CITADagainstCovid19

 

19. There were lot of misinformation and disinformation at early period of the pandemic, do you come across any in your community? How do you come about it? #CITADAgainstCovid19 Of course i did, some members of my community were saying #Covid_19 only affects rich people while others said NGOs are the one that brought the pandemic into the country.

 

20. There are many misinformation about #Covid_19 so, government as well as non-governmental organization have to work on this.

 

21. As we are approaching the end of this discussion, can you tell us the challenges you faced while doing your campaign and some of your recommendations to @KanostateNg and people to ensure we win this fight in the state

 

24^TH September, 2020.

Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), held its 48^th Twitter chat on the 24^th of September, 2020. The guest was Abdulazeez Musa Co-founder and programs Manager of WeCan Africa. He discussed on Covid19 sensitization campaigns at community level.

He started by answering the question on what sensitizing people at the grassroots is and how it is being done? Where he said sensitization means making people know about something and as it relates to Covid19, it means creating awareness about issues related to Covid19. He was further asked that as a young person who is passionate about development work and also working on sensitizing people on Covid19 in the community, how you are carrying your activities. He said he made a need assessment in his community and he discovered that the pandemic has had a huge effect on young people and women too because of their vulnerability. So he decided to train them on taking responsibility themselves through sensitizing and teaching them.

When asked on What tools he used during this training and how did he ensure Covid19 protocols are followed throughout the training and does he think community people despite some of them not believing in the existence of the virus are giving him maximum cooperation and to briefly give the effort that has been put in place to fight corona virus in the community level? He said, they trained 30 youth and 30 women and adolescent girls. For the youth, they held the training through the zoom platform to ensure adherence to #Covid19 safety protocols. For the women, they held a physical meeting but putting in place all the required measures Such as use of face mask, washing base, social distancing etc. And also provided them with what will make them develop interest in them and the message they have for them. So they didn’t only sensitize them, they also taught them entrepreneurship skills that will make them live good while also adhering to the safety protocols to stay safe. For all the women and youth trained, they will be certifying them soon with certificates and also have a one day physical training with them on how they can replicate all they were taught and teaching them entrepreneurship skill so that they can live good while staying and also, to mitigate their susceptibility to negative impact of the virus. The 30 women and adolescent girls in Kumbotso were trained on business skills in hand sanitizer and face mask making towards curtailing the spread and negative impact of the Covid-19 on the people of Kano. Supported by @ICTAdvocates @macfound and @IIEglobal, The trainees promised to utilize their learnt lessons on Covid-19 safety protocols and entrepreneurship skills towards living good while staying safe.

In conclusion, he recommends that the government should do more of meaningful engagement and not only media awareness, though it is important. The virus has affected people in different ways, while sensitizing them, they should also be taught skills and human capacity should be built for them and he also appreciates CITAD for given the chance to young individuals like him to inspire change in their communities and the society at large.

ENGAGEMENTS:

 

Mr @Etudaye_MA may we know what sensitizing people at the grassroots is and how it is being done?

@Etudaye_MA Sensitization means making people know about something and as it relates to Covid19, it means creating awareness about issues related to Covid19.

 

@_sabo12Replying to

As a young person who is passionate about development work and also working on sensitizing people on Covid19 in the community, how are you carrying your activities?

@Etudaye_MA I made a need assessment in my community and I discovered that the pandemic has had a huge effect on young people and women too because of their vulnerability. So I decided to trained on taking responsibility themselves through sensitizing them and teaching

@_sabo12 what tools did you use during this training and how do you ensure Covid19 protocols are followed throughout the training?

@_sabo12 and do you think community people despite some of them not believing in the existence of the virus are giving you maximum cooperation?

@Etudaye_MA provides them with what will make them develop interest in us and the message we have for them. So we didn’t only sensitize them, we also taught them entrepreneurship skills that will make them live good while also adhering to the safety protocols to stay safe.

@_sabo12 we are ending this discussion in few minutes sir, what are your recommendations to both government and people on how to reduce the spread of Covid19 in our communities.

@Etudaye_MA I recommend that the government should do more of meaningful engagement and not only media awareness, though it is important. The virus has affected people in different ways, while sensitizing them, they should also be taught skills and human capacity should be built for them.

Here we come to the end of this insightful discussion with @Etudaye_MA on Covid19 Sensitization at Community Level, on behalf of @ICTAdvocate E.D, we thank our guest most sincerely for taking his time & educate us on this topic. Thank you air

@Etudaye_MA I so much appreciate @CITAD for given the chance to young individuals like us to inspire change in our communities and the society at large. Thank you to @yzy to @_sabo12 and to the team. Thanks to@macfound and @IIEglobal. I am so much honored.