Twenty-six women from the Thengwe Territorial Council in the Mutale area, under the banner of Vudzidzhena Royal Women's Forum, have joined the digital world, thanks to the University of South Africa's Department of Early Childhood, Education and Training. The department presented a basic computer literacy programme to the women.
The coordinator of the Vudzidzhena Royal Women's Forum, Dr Thidziambi Nethengwe, said they had started a project to educate royal women in the territorial council on cultural matters, such as royal languages (luambo lwa musanda) and traditional schools and dances, such as domba, mula, tshigombela and tshikona.
"We understand that traditional leaders are the custodians of culture, therefore the royal women could play a pivotal role in educating their communities, as they are living among the communities in their villages. We are in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which demands more things get done through technology. Many rural royal women were in the dark in this regard and computer literacy has become vital to them," said Nethengwe.
According to Nethengwe, she wants royal women in her territorial council to be comfortable with technology, so that they can communicate better through applications such as WhatsApp and Zoom and be able to attend visual meetings, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. She thanked Unisa for training these women in basic computer literacy.
Dr Shila Mphahlele, a Unisa lecturer on Early Childhood, Education Teaching, Mathematics, Science and Technology, said that they were told about the project of empowering rural royal women in leadership skills and felt a need existed for these women to be trained in digital literacy.
Mphahlele was speaking at the Thengwe Territorial Council offices in Thengwe-Thondoni village on Saturday, 2 January. "The training starts with an analysis, like checking their current level of computer literacy, and we are going to create online classes, where we are going to teach them digital literacy skills, according to their levels."
One of the royal women who started the training, Ms Avhasei Nethengwe of Mangaya village, said the training was an eye-opener for her and some women, as they were in the dark in terms of digital literacy. "I'm a rural royal woman and digital literacy is something new to me, but the training will advance us. As we are first ladies (royal women), we will empower our communities in this regard," Nethengwe said.