In the first week of February Mobile Web East Africa was held in Nairobi, well over 110 participants took part from all echelons of the mobile ecosystem, with the ICT4D sector particularly well represented. Over the course of the two days there was a huge amount discussed and this would be a record breaking blog post if I were to repeat everything. So rather than going down that route I wanted to direct Kabissa members to the two best sources of information from the event:
Ukunda, Kenya, February 27, 2010 – For the first time, a Rural Internet Kiosk (RIK) has been installed for rural youth empowerment in Africa. Voices of Africa for Sustainable Development (VOA4SD) is building the capacity of local youth to empower themselves through the Internet and social enterprise. The community based organization, Voices of Diani will own and operate the Rural Internet Kiosk with training, support, and volunteers from VOA4SD. The Rural Internet Kiosk is a product of Intersat Africa, Ltd. who has generously provided the first year of bandwidth at no cost.
I am excited to announce that the Maasai Girls Education Fund has a new Web site. Please visit the site and read about what we are doing in Kenya to improve the lives of Maasai girls, women, and their communities through education. The site is easy to navigate, informative, and contains many photos of our students and activities.
I hope you will visit the new site soon.
With best regards on behalf of all Maasai women,
The Maasai Girls Education Fund is working to empower Maasai women in Kenya through education, and we are succeeding. A new video--Only Through Education--captures why our work is important and how we are making a difference, not only to the women we educate, but to their families and communities as well.
If you have ever wondered how sports can change the lives of young people, this article will give you an insight in to just what can happen. I was chatting to my colleague, Vincent Kegode, about the upcoming music festival that his organisation Kibera Mpira Mtaani is facilitating. As he explained about how the committee of KMM is now divided in to the “sports desk”, “education desk” and “environment desk” I asked to hear more about the work of the environment desk as all I knew was that they organise clean ups in the community.

Kibera Mpira Mtaani* started out as a football project but has always had aspirations of being more involved in the local community and helping the youth of Kibera to develop their talents. After the success of the 2009 informal schools football tournament and the first year of their library seeing eighteen students pass their KCPE (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education) thanks to KMM’s after school tuition, 2010 looks set to be even bigger and better for this Community Based Organisation.

Following on from the impact that SMS, Voice and Mobile Money has had on the African continent the next stage of mobile technology evolution appears to be in the process of development – with the upsurge in the use of the internet and applications on mobile handsets.

At the weekend, I was invited to be part of a day out for 100 children who attend the resource centre run by our football project, Kibera Mpira Mtaani. The day had been organised by two teachers who work for British schools in Nairobi and volunteer some weekends at the resource centre. One of the British schools had kindly offered use of their playing field for the day to give the children a chance to play freely and safely outside Kibera.