Village Creative Women Accelarator

Women creatives with small businesses in rural Malawi have lost business and hence incomes due to the COVID19 school and business closure and limitations on meeting in public. Their customers included schools who bought school uniforms, jerseys and industries who purchased uniforms.The solution provides opportunity for the women creatives to gain news skills, capital and networks through an online platform to enable the women to gain new skills in producing market-relevant or essential materials mainly PPEs and hand sanitizers for COVID19.The Project will develop community innovation centres fitted with low-cost Internet created in the community with community Internet networks that utilize community radio signals to connect to the Internet even in remotest areas that have no InternetThrough the people networks gained online, rural women will be trained in producing for Countrywide and African regional markets to meet the demand for PPEs and thereby creating employment for themselves. 

The African Union predicts 20 million jobs will be lost in Africa due tonthe COVID19 pandemic. In Malawi thousands of people have lost their jobs since March 20, 2020 when  the President of Malawi, Peter Mutharika declared a state of disaster and banned public meetings of more than 100 people,leading to the closure of all schools and some industries.  By June 17  20, 2020, Malawi had recorded close to 600  confirmed COVID19 cases  according to the Ministry of Health and Government of Malawi. For creative women; tailors;knitters, craftswomen,  this has meant job and business losses and lack of food and other basics due to lack of an income. But the pandemic has brought business opportunities as there is a shortage of PPEs and medical masks which van be produced by creative women in rural areas with adequate financial, technical and marketing support. The purpose of this problem is to address this Challenge.

The proposed solution provides a community innovation and creative centre where rural women with creative skills can advance their skills through e-learning tutorials teaching  producing export quality PPEs and hand sanitizers to meet the global demand. The innovation centres will be fitted with solar-powered computers and  affordable Internet produced by the Community's Internet Network using simple digital technology that taps radio waves to connect rural communities to accessing digitized content from remote mentors as well as to produce local vocational skills training content for the women. Through these Centers successful women  trainees can access capital to invest in their creative business and marketing support to engage customers using digital marketing and thereby sell PPEs, hand sanitizers  and other quality creative products to a regional market and gain more income  as well as create jobs for others.

The rural innovation and creative centres are targeting  empowering 500 marginalized women with some creative skills  and or business and those with a  passion to gain new creative skills to start and maintain a new business that is COVID19 responsive  in Mzimba in Northern Malawi. Specifically, women with disabilities, women-heading households, women affected by HIV and AIDS and unemployed women in rural areas.  The women were engaged through focus group discussions under the pilot phase of the Innitiative and the solution addresses their challenges in that the women are regaining an opportunity to earn an income by providing new services that have a ready market and to new   create jobs despite the  COVID19 pandemic and loss of old markets for older products.

Women creatives running small tailoring businesses have lost customers and income since the COVID19 pandemic restrictions were issued in Malawi as the need for sewn and knitted products like school uniforms reduced. This solution restores economic opportunity by enabling the women entreprenuers to gain improved creative  skills and start new businesses or launch new products in the line of medical PPEs   and gain prosper upon gaining capital, networks online  and new manufacturing and Internet technology.