Women for centuries have been the backbone of the economy, using every possible creative means available to them to make ends meet.

“If you take anything home today, it should be that the ability for your business to grow entirely depends on how much work you put in. Develop solutions to a problem around you with the right tools then watch your business flourish.” Joanita Nvannungi started as she welcomed the ladies to the Women in Tech workshop aimed at introducing digital tools for business productivity at the Innovation Village in Gulu.

From the 27th to 28th of October 2020, Refactory, in partnership with the Innovation Village hosted a two-day Women in Tech workshop targeting businesswomen in Gulu. The training was attended both in person at the Innovation village hub in Gulu and on Zoom for those that could be there.

The Workshop

Day one, our Administrative Lead Joanita Nvannungi and the Operations Manager, Lyllian Nakasujja shared on G Suite and the many ways through which they could enrich their businesses using it. From creating email accounts, writing decent and formal emails, creating and using Google docs and sheets, to carry their businesses with them on the go, creating feedback forms for their clients. The ladies explored the power of  Google drive and how best they could collaborate with their employees and associates in this increasingly virtual business world without compromising on quality and privacy.

On day two, the ladies were introduced to the many possibilities of marketing and how they could get the word out their faster about their businesses. In this session, Joanita Nassiwa, the Communications and Marketing Lead shared with the ladies simple ways they can use tools available to them to capture their audiences such as blog marketing (sharing from a personal point of view that will see their audience relate not just to you but your product as well), social media boosting (As many of the ladies already had Facebook accounts) and how to use analytics to give them insight into the audience behavioural pattern and what kind of content their audience is interested in. With tools such as Canva, the ladies were able to create graphic material to put up on their sites.

Our goal was to share knowledge but most importantly to leave the businesswomen who attended with the practical skills to run their businesses more effectively and therein see more productivity. 

The feedback

Adyero Gloria who owns are clothing line, Ady’s closet and a tours and travels company, Loremi Tours said “Everything has been relevant and eye-opening, from social media handling to the functions of the spreadsheets and google forms. I used to think they were so difficult and for the chosen few.” 

Gloria was able to create a poster to share on her social channels to advertise a planned clearance sale at the end of the month.

Ajura Anene Sharon said her takeaways from the workshop were blog management and spreadsheet functions. “Blogging will enable me to update my website and social media, interact with different individuals for visibility but also generate feedback from my already existing clients about my products, updating my website has been long overdue,” Sharon remarked

Last but not least Gillian Achen, who is in the process of establishing a campsite at Arua falls and is also a pastry chef. Due to COVID- 19, she lost her shop in June. Through the sessions, Gillian was able to design a captivating poster with a simple message about her business. By the time we set off to head back home at the end of the workshop, she had over 6 unique individuals asking questions about where her business was located and how they could reach out to her. 

In just two days, the ladies in attendance created feedback forms for their businesses, tallied their capital in google sheets and curated content for their social media channels all geared toward business productivity.

Refactory remains passionate about equipping young Africans from all walks of life with the right tools to use technology to effectively add value to their community. It’s for such days and such ladies that we continue to commit to our mission. Not for the certificate acquired but for the individual one becomes to bring about transformational change wherever they go.

The value of practical skilling for the community at Refactory is reflected in other programs like the Catalyst course which imparts software development skills to young people, both technical and non-technical in order to solve the problems of our world.