Growing female leadership in education across Africa
The Women Empowerment Program (WEP) is a unique Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program launched by SAP and Africa Code Week key partners. It aims to equip African female teachers with the skills and knowledge they need to successfully teach, inspire, mentor and prepare girls for tomorrow’s tech workplace.
455
Attendees
354
Alumnae
39
Countries
2
6-week Sessions per Year
Levelling the playing field for women by addressing the challenges they face when it comes to accessing digital education and growing their skillset.
Bringing together African female teachers and educators in Computer Science and STEM to foster an educational, collaborative, and innovative environment that supports the work of SDGs 3, 4, 5 and 17.
Female teachers…
Increase girls’ test scores as well as their likelihood of staying in school. Beyond academics, female teachers can also heighten girls’ aspirations, and lower their likelihood of being subject to violence. They are in a unique position to help impact the lives of female students and change the education system altogether.
The program actively supports female teachers on their leadership and mentoring journey while providing a safe learning platform for them to explore current barriers to girls’ education.
They also develop innovative ideas to overcome these barriers, honing a wide array of tools and skills along the way – from Design Thinking and storytelling all the way to animation and digital tools.
An initiative by
Our Role
The Camden Education Trust is the main implementing partner appointed by SAP and Irish Aid as part of the Africa Code Week initiative. We are responsible for:
Fundraising and funding applications from Irish Aid, UNESCO and SAP.
Delivering and managing each 6-week series.
Recruiting and managing the entire production team.
Open Letter to the Female Teachers of Africa
Be a source of inspiration and encouragement for each other. Keep learning from each other so that together, you support the rise of a new generation of women leaders lifting the continent to rightful heights.
The WEP is of paramount importance when it comes to helping you, women teachers across the continent, become true leaders and change makers.
From your selflessness will rise your ability to turn ground-breaking ideas into action and bridge the gap that still keeps too many women from embracing the digital promise.
In this collective journey, let’s not forget to engage and train all the moms, sisters, cousins and aunties at home. They are the inexhaustible sources of inspiration and rock-solid support that our efforts need to bear fruit in the short and long run.
Finally, let us see failure and frustration as powerful incentives along the way. For people who lack confidence and use doubt to reach inwards and upwards have a name: we call them leaders.
Fatoumata Niang Niox
(Executive Director of Jokkolabs | ACCEENT Founder | SAP Africa Code Week & WEP Ambassador in Western Africa)
90%
of WEP participants self-identify as a leader at the end of each series. (WEP Survey)
Victoria Nxumalo
Founder & Executive Director of Girls In STEM Trust
#AfricaCodeWeek Country Lead in Zimbabwe
#WEP Moderator
The WEP has been an amazing personal development exercise. I remain grateful for the opportunity to meet and work with many inspirational female leaders and educators from across the African continent and beyond. The introspection process on becoming an effective leader has been incredible. This program has enabled me to build external networks and gain precious exposure to what other African teachers are doing to be innovative in their classrooms in these uncertain times of cyber-bullying and misinformation.”
COVID-19 Survey
In 2022, we launched a research campaign to explore the barriers to education that exist for girls in Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key Milestones
2019
SAP, Irish Aid, UNESCO, camden.education and the Moroccan Ministry of National Education held the first WEP pilot in Rabat. Thanks to the generosity of the Department of Education in Morocco, the event successfully hosted 28 female teachers from 15 countries under one roof.
2020
Partners built on this success by creatively adapting the workshop to virtual, enabling French and English-speaking women from African countries the opportunity to share their experiences, learn new skills, and form a community of practice.
Since 2021
Scaling impact with two series per year and a local chapter.