Use tablets to support communities in rural Kenya

It feels like only yesterday when we first delivered 20 (and later another 40) tablets for use in our first Digital Communities project, based in Kitale, Western Kenya. Whilst initially only planned as a 1-year pilot, thanks to the generosity and support of local and international teams we were able to extend the project into the second year and look for more ways to sustainably move forward beyond.

As for a quick few highlights from the past year:

• Primary Schools - We have been able to continually work with local primary schools throughout the year and successfully managed to conduct a full randomised control trial to evaluate impact. This was a huge undertaking, as it involved gaining ethical approval from partner universities in Kenya and UK, upskilling the local team to conduct pre and post tests using the EGMA and EGRA international standards and identifying an intervention timeline that wouldn't be disrupted by holidays or elections. We are at the final stage of analysing the data and look forward to publishing the results very soon.
  
  
• Secondary Schools - Whilst less time was spent in secondary schools compared to primary, we did manage to hold a number of events such as 'African Code Week' and summer 'Maths Camps' where high school students were given lots of opportunities to interact and be inspired with ideas such as programming and robotics. Following the success of these events, the local team has managed to secure an additional $20,000 to see programmes grow in the future. This is of course a huge achievement and milestone for project sustainability, and would not have been possible without the support of people like you.
  
  
• Agriculture - The local team has recently moved its operations to the nearby Manor House Agricultural Centre, and taken the opportunity to expand their ideas for integrating technology into support for farmers. They have been part of numerous training programmes and have strong plans to keep building on these in the future. Food security is still a major issue, and other the past 2 years we have since periods of both critical drought and intense flooding; new technologies and innovations are more important than ever to help farmers cope manage such unpredictable and difficult times.
  
  
• Women in Enterprise - This has been a huge learning experience for the team, with much time spent travelling around the country to meet inspiring women running their own businesses. The team has been able to use videos to help support the learning of new skills such as beadwork and bag-making, and is also proud to share the success of one it's own interns, Cabrine, who was invited to the Young African Leaders Initiative to learn more about human-centred design thinking, social inclusion and design challenges.

From everyone in the UK and Kenya, we would like to again extend a huge thanks for your support, and hope to share lots more exciting updates in the future!