New Partnership with UN Women to Teach Key Digital Skills to Women

The Internet is most powerful when anyone — regardless of gender or geography — can participate equally. A truly open Web should unlock educational, economic, and civic opportunity for everyone, everywhere.
Motivated by this core belief, Mozilla and UN Women — the United Nations entity devoted to the empowerment of women — are teaming up to teach digital skills to girls and women in Nairobi, Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa. Our goal: to improve the lives of women in Africa by leveraging the power of the open Internet.
Also driving our work is a troubling statistic: While more than 3 billion people are connected online, research indicates there are 200 million fewer women online in developing countries, and 300 million fewer women own a mobile phone. In beginning to change these numbers for the better, we can empower women in their own lives and as digital citizens.
To do this, Mozilla and UN Women will work alongside local educators, organizations and residents to built a network of web literacy clubs that promote peer-to peer-learning, teaching participants how to collaborate with each other and meaningfully participate online. These groups will follow the Mozilla Club model, meeting regularly and in-person. They will draw on a comprehensive curriculum that covers topics like Web navigation; content creation; coding; online rights, privacy and security; and connecting to opportunities linked to women’s leadership, civic participation and economic empowerment. There will also be the development of new curriculum on female-specific web issues, facilitation guides for engaging female-only groups and a mobile app to allow for participation and continued learning by participants across countries in the program. Mozilla will also train on-the-ground leaders to facilitate these clubs.
This pilot program will draw on lessons learned in India, Indonesia and Brazil over the past year as we’ve launched, tested and developed the Mozilla Clubs program to reach 170+ clubs in 25+ countries around the world. Since launch, Mozilla Clubs has seen success in bringing communities together around collaboration, professional development and the open web.

Mozilla community members in Kenya. Photo by Laura de Reynal.

Mozilla community members in Kenya. Photo by Laura de Reynal.


This pilot program will run through the end of 2016, and draw on the existing Mozilla communities of educators, learners, and open Internet advocates in the two regions. While also connecting the work and leaders to the larger Mozilla community, and engaging those in other African countries to start similar endeavours to continue growing the movement.
“Improving digital literacy among women is essential,” says Jennifer Breslin, Lead, Innovation and Technology for Development,  UN Women. “Web literacy can improve everything from personal well-being and education access to civic and political participation. Further, the more women we have participating and creating content online, the more relevant and stronger the open Internet becomes.”
This pilot project is the first in a broader partnership between UN Women and Mozilla to drive a more socially just and inclusive agenda based on a common set of values and vision between the two organizations. It links Mozilla’s leadership in digital literacy, participatory learning, and open practice with UN Women’s global leadership on gender and technology.
To learn more about Mozilla Clubs, visit teach.mozilla.org/clubs.
Mozilla community members in Kenya. Photo by Laura de Reynal.

Mozilla community members in Kenya. Photo by Laura de Reynal.

6 responses

  1. Don Presant wrote on :

    Hi Amira, this sounds great. I’m very interested in humanitarian learning and development from a slightly different angle.
    Is there a Mozilla Open Badges angle for recognizing skills that have been gained?
    @donpresant

    1. Amira Dhalla wrote on :

      Thanks Don!
      There is a new badging approach for Mozilla Learning activities that will be implemented in the future and Mozilla Clubs (as well as the Clubs for women and girls) will be apart of it.

  2. Museb Khalid wrote on :

    Its sounds great……..IA we ‘ll must introduce in our club…!

  3. Marieme Jamme wrote on :

    Amira, this is Wonderful. I am the code would love to help you measure success locally in Africa. Please let us know how we can collaborate. Thank you. Marieme

    1. Amira wrote on :

      Hey Marieme,
      Glad to see you here! As mentioned at the UN Women Youth Working Group Lunch, there are many intersections in our work. I’ll send you an email now to follow up.

  4. Pingback from Interview: Mozilla's CIO unfolds the Equal Rating Innovation Challenge – Innovative Edge Solutions on :

    […] and partnering with numerous web literacy initiatives all over the world. In Africa for example we teamed up with UN Women — the United Nations entity devoted to the empowerment of women — to teach digital […]