Empower Women and Meet Millennium Development Goals

“Empower Women and Meet Millennium Development Goals” is a project of the Kenyan organization Slum Information Development and Resources Centres (SIDAREC). After winning the WSYA in 2009, George Onyango from SIDAREC says: "The major recognition that my organization received by winning WSYA meant that our work can be relied on to benefit others. So far, we have had the benefit of partnering with Vlad's and Adam's institution. They saw the work SIDAREC has been doing and believe that we can strike some kind of partnership to benefit youth and women in the slums. Winning WSYA has helped SIDAREC in terms of the public perception of what SIDAREC has been doing to promote women livelihood in the slums. More and more people recognize that women are the pillars of development in the African society and if given support, the country would be able to achieve most of the MDGs before 2015. As a result, many institutions have opted for programs that support/promote women in development. The award has been very helpful in connecting me with other networks, particularly among the WSYA winners. We have also been lucky to have networks from other countries who want to learn from our work. An example is the Data Digital Divide who are interested in working with SIDAREC. Our future plans are to put up a revolving fund in the slums for women and youth so that we are able to meet part or all of the MDGs. Revolving Fund is the only way in empowering youth and women take initiatives of development in their own hands."