How UNESCO, Nestlé rewriting story of women’s literacy in Côte d’Ivoire

By Chioma Obinna

At the Koumassi marketplace successful Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s bustling commercialized hub, Madam Yonkaho Guinssalou adjusts her wares with 1 manus — a smartphone successful the other.

Just a fewer years ago, she could not work the numbers connected a buying list, fto unsocial nonstop a substance connection connected a smartphone

“Before, erstwhile customers came and gave maine insubstantial to bargain things, I could not read,” she said with a shy smile, showing the tiny chalkboard wherever she had conscionable written her sanction and telephone number.

“Now I tin read, write, and adjacent usage my telephone for business. Before, I was blind. Now I see.”

Madam Yonkaho’s words — “before, I was blind, present I see”, person go a rallying outcry for hundreds of marketplace women crossed Côte d’Ivoire whose lives are being changed by a quiescent gyration successful learning.

The translation began with a concern betwixt Nestlé and UNESCO, aimed astatine empowering women traders done functional and integer literacy. According to Mrs. Patricia Ekaba, Nestlé’s Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Director for the Central and West Africa Region, the inaugural reflects Nestlé’s doctrine of Creating Shared Value by ensuring that concern maturation besides drives assemblage progress.

“We judge the champion radical to talk astir interaction are not us, but the beneficiaries themselves,” Ekaba told journalists during a sojourn to the UNESCO bureau successful Abidjan.

“This is portion of however we behaviour our concern globally to make shared worth for individuals, families, communities, and the planet.”

Nestlé’s absorption areas comprising nutrition, younker training, women’s autonomy, and biology responsibility, each converge successful the Nestlé, UNESCO partnership. 

“What we bash with UNESCO speaks to women’s empowerment. What we bash with farmers focuses connected sustainable production. And what we bash with younker builds capacity. Together, it each connects,” Ekabo explained.

Teaching letters done life

For Dr. Yves Sagou, coordinator of UNESCO’s literacy projects, the Nestlé women’s literacy programme is simply a profound applicable model.   “This is not conscionable a speechmaking class, its acquisition for living. It’s designed for women traders who are already moving successful the markets. We conscionable them wherever they are.”

Classes are held erstwhile a week, usually connected Wednesdays, with follow-ups successful the market. Trainers usage smartphones loaded with a customized integer learning app that combines voiceovers, letter-tracing exercises, and symbolic illustrations to marque literacy travel alive.

“We thatch utilizing 10 mundane symbols. For example, a vertical enactment represents a well-brought-up child. A horizontal enactment represents a well-managed home. When women gully these, they’re not conscionable forming letters — they’re learning values, ” Sagou explained.

Through these intuitive exercises, women larn to read, write, calculate, and usage mobile technology. They besides person lessons connected hygiene, household budgeting, banal management, and children’s schoolhouse follow-up successful what Sagou calls “education for the full woman.”

Many participants juggle family, business, and learning.

To marque acquisition accessible, UNESCO’s instructors spell straight to the markets. “Some women can’t permission their stalls,” said Dr. Moussa Doumbia, who moderated a caller grooming session.

“So our teachers conscionable them wherever they sell. They thatch with patience, with humour, with heart.”

Classes typically past 9 months — six for basal literacy and 3 for “post-literacy,” wherever women larn record-keeping, savings, and leadership. “The astir hard happening is convincing them to instrumentality the archetypal step. But erstwhile they start, they ne'er privation to stop,” Sagou explained.

UNESCO’s pride, Côte d’Ivoire’s gain

For Mrs. Tené Haïdara, who stood successful for UNESCO’s Representative successful Côte d’Ivoire, the task marks a milestone successful the country’s acquisition policy.

“Before UNESCO and Nestlé launched this initiative, Côte d’Ivoire had nary integer literacy programme,” she said. “Now, integer literacy is portion of our nationalist strategy, a exemplary we are arrogant to contiguous internationally. ” The project’s success,” she added, “is a testament to public-private collaboration. This concern has brought thing precise affirmative and innovative,” Haïdara said.

“It’s not conscionable literacy; its dignity restored. It’s incl...