[Kictanet] Partnership to Bridge Digital Divide for Urban Youth

[Wainaina Mungai]

Partnership to Bridge Digital Divide for Urban Youth  

UN-HABITAT and Computer Aid International have signed a landmark agreement to help avail ICT to the inhabitants of Kibera slums in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the world's poorest informal settlements. The document was signed in June 2006 by UN-HABITAT Executive Director Anna Tibaijuka and Tony Roberts Computer Aid International Chief Executive during the Third Session of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver, Canada. The Agreement of Cooperation spelt out how the two organisations will work together to apply ICTs to urban development projects beginning with a pilot in Kibera, Nairobi called the 'Computers for Communities' project. Kibera is Africa's largest urban slum and is home to about one million people. The Computers for Communities project is part of the UN-Habitat 'ICT for Development' programme. Computer Aid International is the world's largest not-for-profit provider of computers to developing countries. 

Computer Aid has provided 70,000 PCs to educational institutions and not-for-profit organisations in 104 different countries. More than 6,000 of that total have been sent to Kenyan schools, universities and non-governmental organisations. The first computer laboratory created under the scheme will be at the 'One Stop Youth Shop' community resource centre in Kibera, Nairobi. This innovative and ground-breaking centre provides a rare meeting place for young people to come together to access information  
 
 
SOURCE: http://www.unhabitat.org/content.asp?cid=3300&catid=41&typeid=6&subMenuId=0

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Wainaina Mungai
http://www.madeinkenya.org

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.