Networking Academy Goes from Strength to Strength in One of Africa's Neediest Communities

December 17, 2008

By Mike Stone

In the last year the Nairobi ghetto of Kibera, home to one million Kenyans, has been the scene of an extraordinary achievement by the local people. Kibera is a community that lacks running water and, for the most part, electricity. It does not even have a sewage system.

Yet Kibera, where unemployment runs at 50 percent and crime, high infant mortality and poverty are rife, now has 52 new information and communications technology (ICT) graduates thanks to a Cisco® Networking Academy® center that opened for business last year.

Amazingly, even without reliable and widespread power, Kibera has a demand for computers and networks, and people who can fix them.

And in Nairobi, only three miles away, there are ever-increasing opportunities for ICT professionals. The Kibera academy was founded in June 2007 in an effort to both serve and uplift the community.

Over the last year, the academy, which imparts globally-recognized computer and networking skills, has gained wide acceptance in the community. Classes are so popular that they are now run seven days a week.

The academy is looking forward to receiving another 25 PCs, donated by Cisco, which will double its inventory and enable more advanced courses to be taught.

"Before I started the project," says Hital Muraj, area academy manager for East Africa, "I made sure that they had put some basic security in place, such as grilles on the windows and doors. But the most effective security has been the way the community sees the academy.

"People here are aware that this facility is for their benefit and hence they guard the property."

The community's goodwill for the project has been rewarded with 80 enrolled and graduated students so far, providing not only an injection of IT skills but also real employment opportunities. Two graduates have already set up their own business servicing local cybercafés.

Two others are being considered for posts with a local non-government organization, Computers For Schools Kenya, which refurbishes second-hand PCs donated in developed countries and distributes them amongst deprived communities.

"There has been interest from future employers in Networking Academy students because there is a shortage of technical skills," confirms Muraj. "Most people with computer skills in Nairobi can use applications like Word and Excel, but very few are able to troubleshoot problems."

Isaac Muteti, a Networking Academy student, adds: "With this course, we stand a better chance to get a job. This is the first time in my life that I have felt so nurtured and empowered."

And the Academy is not just benefiting students in Kibera. Last December, 10 graduates were selected to conduct out a free PC clinic at the local John Paul School as part of International Volunteers Day.

There they repaired, cleaned and optimized computers, impressing the center's 300 students so much that John Paul is now considering opening its own academy.

As well as providing much-needed ICT skills, the Kibera academy has also helped put the spotlight on a community which until now has been largely neglected.

In November 2007, for example, the academy was the subject of a special visit by officials attending the fourth Web for Development conference, an annual event for United Nations agencies and international development civil society organizations.

Representatives of the Kenyan government have also visited Kibera and come away deeply impressed. Two students were even offered jobs by a member of the government's ICT committee on the basis of what they saw when they attended a recent graduation ceremony.

But perhaps the most ringing endorsement has come from the government, in the form of a proposal to incorporate the Networking Academy into new 'digital villages'. This ambitious project will seek to bring digital services, schooling and more to 210 constituencies in Kenya.

The ultimate objective of the World Bank-funded project, part of a KES7.8 billion (USD$116 million) joint initiative covering some of the poorest regions on earth, is local, de-centralized development through improved access to ICT.

Officials opted to incorporate Networking Academy tuition into the project after Hital Muraj noticed that there was no IT training or support factored into the digital village plans for cybercafé services, administrative outsourcing, telephony support and small business promotion.

She invited representatives of the government's ICT committee to Kibera to see how the Academy operates in one of the most deprived communities in Africa. "My argument was that if the Networking Academy could work there, it could work anywhere," explains Muraj.

Once they had seen the year-old Kibera academy in action, the government representatives were in full agreement. And the long term plan now is that every digital village will have an associated academy to provide technical support and training.

Mike Stone is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.