The Fund for Internet Research and Education – FIRE Africa – is Africa’s leading Grants and Awards programme designed to encourage, support and develop innovative online solutions to Africa’s education, information, infrastructure and communication needs.
Case Study: Empowering African Women and girls through the use of informative and interactive online resources.
Project: MakeEveryWomanCount a virtual information hub that promotes African women’s participation in all aspects of development discourse. It’s an African woman-led organisation that serves as a mobilising, networking, information, advocacy and training platform for African women by building African women and girls’ leadership capacities to influence policy and decision-making.
Organisation: Make Every Woman Count (MEWC)
Country: Guinea-Conakry (implemented in all of Africa)
Category: E-Development, FIRE Africa Awards 2013
Making it Happen
MEWC received a US$ 3,000 FIRE Award in 2013. “The FIRE Award was crucial in helping us to pay for the running costs of the organisation for the first trimester of 2014, enabling MEWC to continue to promote the empowerment of African women’s rights through the use of ICT well into the year,” says Rainatou Sow, project leader and CEO. “As part of the Award, I was also able to attend the Internet Governace Forum (IGF) 2013 in Bali, Indonesia, to meet likeminded individuals and promote the MEWC platform to a global audience. In May 2014, with a huge amount of support from the FIRE Africa team, MEWC travelled to the Stockholm Internet Forum where we were able to showcase our work and led a panel discussion on Women and ICT.”
Update 2015
The MEWC platform is going from strength to strength, continuing to promote the use of the Internet to ensure that African women have a real say in all governance institutions, as well as in the private sector. In January 2015, MEWC launched its Annual Report, which monitors African women’s rights in all 55 African countries, at the African Union Summit in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. MEWC has also developed a five year strategic plan to develop an infrastructure that will accommodate growth and ensure the stability of the organisation over time. This will ensure that the organisation can continue its work to promote access and use of information and communication technologies among African women and girls to enable them to develop a thoughtful and strategic use of ICTs to improve their life conditions, exercise their rights, prevent gender violence, achieve economic empowerment and hold governments accountable.
Strong Leadership
Rainatou Sow, CEO MEWC, was nominated as one of the four finalists of the first ever African Digital Woman of the Year 2013 and was featured in the “20 Youngest Power Women in Africa” by Forbes Magazine. In March 2014, she was also named one of the “20 Young Builders of the Africa of Tomorrow” by Forbes Magazine and one of the “100 BBC Women” in 2013 and 2014.
More about FIRE Africa
FIRE Africa provides funds for projects, initiatives, tools and platforms that harness the power of the Internet to empower the local and regional community to solve the region’s unique online communications problems. Since we ran our pilot project in 2007 to identify innovative ICT solutions to the challenges faced by local communities, FIRE Africa has grown into a fully-fledged programme that has helped over 30 initiatives in 16 countries over the last eight years.
Calling all African innovators and Entrepreneuers
Have you got a great idea? Does it use ICT to solve an issue in your community? If your ideas are aligned with one of our funding categories, you could have the chance to win a FIRE Africa Award or receive a FIRE Africa Grant.
Calling all Potential Sponsors and Partners
FIRE Africa is actively seeking organisations and individuals to support Internet-based innovation in Africa. We have a wide range of sponsorship and partnership packages available and can tailor packages according to your needs. In addition to funding, FIRE Africa’s partners and sponsors offer their experiences, advice and regional insight so we are constantly aware of innovation initiatives taking place out in the community.
