Tag Archives: Africa

July 12, 2017 · 4:36 pm

Sierra Leone: Leader in Religious Tolerance

Jessica and I returned late Saturday from a short trip to Sierra Leone where we presented at Terri Khonsari‘s technical center Families Without Borders, and the University of Makeni in Makeni, and at Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone) in Freetown – to about 300 students in all.

Sierra Leone is one of the friendliest and most welcoming countries in which I have ever traveled. This West African country is particularly remarkable its its religious tolerance. Although about 60% of the country is Muslim, we saw a wide array of religious institutions and practices coexisting in peace. Jessica and I were particularly delighted with two small stores on either side of a shop where we bought bowls. One store was called Christ In Me Enterprise and the other Allah is Great Enterprise.

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Images Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson

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Filed under Home & Family, Mentoring & Other Business, Mentoring Standard, News & Reviews, Politics

Tagged as Africa, Jessica, Sierra Leone, TechWomen

July 3, 2017 · 9:42 am

Families Without Borders, Sierra Leone 2 July 2017

Jessica Dickinson Goodman and I are on a trip to make presentations at Families Without Borders in Makeni, Sierra Leone. We have been making presentations about the web, research, blogging, and social media. This blog is being posted as a live example of How to Blog – it was written live in front of 28 students. The students want you to know that they love each other and they work hard to get things done. They welcome visitors to their country! Thinking of Sierra Leone, they want to say:

They are rich in their culture.
“Salone” is a land of religious and political tolerance.
Their land is wealthy in mineral resources and agriculture.
Sierra Leone is a peaceful nation and it is not always about bad things.
The natural habitat is beautiful, especially the ocean and the Lion Mountains.
They have two seasons: rainy and dry.

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Images Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson

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Filed under Home & Family, Mentoring & Other Business, Mentoring Standard

Tagged as Africa, Jessica, Mentoring, Sierra Leone, teaching, technical women, TechWomen

June 22, 2017 · 2:04 pm

Extra Gear? Gifts for Sierra Leone

My daughter Jessica and I will be visiting Families Without Borders in Sierra Leone next week with Terri Khonsari. If you have any extra laptops or smart phones we can bring – no matter how old or dead – the students will be delighted with your donation. Please contact me soon!

I have visited the inspiring and fascinating continent of Africa at least once a year since 2010. With TechWomen Delegations, I have been to Morocco and Tunisia in North Africa, plus participating in Delegations to Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa below the Sahara. With People to People, John and I visited Ethiopia. My only actual vacation in Africa was to Egypt in 2010 – a much longer trip than planned since our family was stranded there by the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano. This will be my first trip to West Africa.

I bring gifts on each trip for our generous hosts and for new friends and colleagues. For my first TechWomen Delegations, I had custom pencils made but more recently, I have brought San Francisco keychains and geeky pens and toys given away at events like the Grace Hopper Conference. For this trip, I bought keychains, the Willow Glen Wells Fargo Bank branch gave me a big bag of red pens, and I am also bringing packages of stickers for the children.

However, the best present for the students in Sierra Leone would be empowerment and greater connection to the wider world. Your outdated computer gear can help them. I hope to hear from you!

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Image Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson

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Filed under Home & Family, Hopper - Anita Borg Institute, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Africa, Egypt, Geeks, Jessica, Morocco, Rwanda, San Francisco, San Jose, Sierra Leone, Silicon Valley, South Africa, teaching, technical women, TechWomen, Tunisia, Willow Glen, Zimbabwe

June 12, 2017 · 12:25 pm

Sierra Leone Trip – Families Without Borders

Terri Khonsari, my daughter Jessica Dickinson Goodman, and I are traveling to Sierra Leone in a few weeks to visit the Families Without Borders school Terri manages in Makeni. Jessica and I will be making technical and business presentations in Makeni and in Freetown. Terri and I are both long-time Mentors for the TechWomen program. We have been discussing this trip for years.

More about Families Without Borders:

We believe in building communities from within through education and empowerment of local youth. We begin by recruiting top students from disadvantaged families. We enroll them in a four year Bachelors Degree program of their choice complemented by a full servant leadership and personal development program. The program includes: advance computer skills, communication skills and financial management.

On Saturday, John, Matthew, Jessica and I joined TechWomen IdaRose Sylvester (with her husband Neil Hendin) and Samera Edwards at the Families Without Borders annual fundraising Gala. We enjoyed good company, good food, and good music. Jessica even learned some drumming.

Here are Hamid and Terri Khonsari with four TechWomen Fellows from Sierra Leone at the Families Without Borders Gala in 2015:

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Images Copyright 2015-2017 by Katy Dickinson

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Filed under Home & Family, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Africa, Jessica, John, Matthew, Mentoring, Paul, Sierra Leone, teaching, technical women, TechWomen

February 23, 2017 · 11:00 am

Barbara Merrill in Tanzania

Barbara Merrill describes herself in her email signature as a “Certified Ergonomist and A Very Good Friend” – and she is indeed both. Barbara is also a parishioner at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and a person with albinism (PWA).

In these last two capacities, Barbara celebrated her retirement by traveling to Tanzania to help albino children and their families. She worked with a Cerebral Palsy Clinic, visited the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Step by Step school and other schools in Arusha, participated in an Albinism Conference to educate village leaders in Ngorongoro Crater, and visited an Asante Miriamu Foundation clinic and children’s camp in Kigoma and Kabanga.

This month, Barbara gave a report to St. Andrew’s called “Trip to Tanzania” about her 5 November 2016 – 12 December 2016 travels. Some facts she presented about Tanzania:

70% of the population is rural
Capital Dar es Salaam and Dodoma
68% below poverty level
Large percentage of population under 15 years old Generally high birth rate about 5 per woman
High infant mortality rate – nutrition, early and frequent pregnancies, inadequate maternal health.
Tourism is about 20% of the Tanzanian Economy

One of the most interesting of her slides for me was called “Myths About Albinism”

PWAs are ghosts
Mother slept with a white man
They don’t die just fade away
Magical powers
PWAs are evil
Albinism a curse or punishment
PWAs have pink eyes
Albinism is contagious

Thanks to Barbara for her dedication, teaching, and great heart!

Images Copyright Barbara Merrill 2016

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Filed under Church, News & Reviews

Tagged as Africa, Episcopal church, Tanzania, teaching

November 29, 2016 · 12:17 pm

TechWomen 2016 Fellows – Next Steps

The 90 TechWomen 2016 Fellows returned to their 19 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. After a very busy month in the San Francisco Bay Area and a week in Washington DC, they have been been reconnecting with home and family. Some of us mentors in the Silicon Valley have continued working remotely with our mentees since we last saw them in Washington DC. Two groups with whom I have actively continued to work are Team Tunisia (the development group of six from Tunis, plus three TechWomen mentors), and the TechWomen 2016 Fellows who have become Certified Mentors with my company, Mentoring Standard.

Team Tunisia has met remotely twice already and is busily developing plans, branding, and social media for WAKTECH. WAKTECH will developing a software application plus community system to improve public transport in Tunis. Our team won one of the TechWomen Pitch Day seed grants last month and we are now looking for additional sources of funding and support. While we were in Washington DC, Team Tunisia was able to meet His Excellency Fayçal Gouia, Tunisia’s Ambassador to the United States. We brought along our TechWomen trophy to show him!

12 TechWomen 2016 Fellows have completed the submissions required to become Certified Mentors after returning home. They have demonstrated that they hold the following three qualities:

Significant Mentoring History.
Good Reputation.
Respectable Professional Experience.

Congratulations and welcome to:

Engy Abdalla	Architect & Interior Designer, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Alexandria, Egypt
Yousra Anwar Abdelhady	Independent Trainer, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Alexandria, Egypt
Chioma Hannah Ezedi	Programmer, Abububakar Tafawa Balewa University, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Bauchi, Nigeria
Yelena Filipchik	Sales Intelligence Manager, PepsiCo, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Almaty, Kazakhstan
Habsatou Nadia	Project Engineer, Cameroon Telecommunication, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Yaounde, Cameroon
Kitio Tsamo Arielle	Founder: WIT, Computer Science Lecturer Assistant: University of Yaounde 1, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Yaounde, Cameroon
Diana Hasan Nassar	Product Manager: souq.com, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Amman, Jordan
Estelle Ndedi-Nzalli	Computer Sciences Engineer, Information Technology Department, Ingenieris, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Yaounde, Cameroon
Dr. Francisca Onaolapo Oladipo	Professor, Federal University Lokoja, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria
Gulshnar Salpykova	IT Specialist, Transtelecom JSC, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Astana, Kazakhstan
Yomna Emad Saleh	Business & Innovation Consultant: Innovety, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Cairo, Egypt
Nazira Sheraly	CEO, Agroholding Jashyl Charba, TechWomen 2016 Fellow	Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic

I am very proud of all of them! More information about each of these remarkable mentors is on Mentoring Standard’s Honor Roll.

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Filed under Mentoring & Other Business, Mentoring Standard, News & Reviews

Tagged as Africa, Cameroon, Central Asia, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mentoring, Middle East, Nigeria, Silicon Valley, technical women, TechWomen, Tunisia

October 11, 2016 · 11:21 pm

Africa Wins!

At yesterday’s TechWomen Community Event, all five Pitch Day seed grant prizes went to teams representing countries in Africa: Cameroon, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tunisia, and Kenya! All 19 presentations from Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa were so inspiring, I am sure the judges had a tough time deciding which to honor. It was a pleasure to spend the evening with my daughter Jessica.

I am so very proud to have been one of the Impact Advisors for Tunisia! Our WAKTECH action plan to improve transportation in Tunis included six from Tunisia and three from the San Francisco Bay Area: