Brizan Were rears 'digital lions' in Turkana desert

Mary, not her real name, got pregnant while in Grade 6 at the age of 13  and the next option for her was getting married.

She was a pupil at KaKwanyang’ Primary School in Turkana.

Marvel, aged 17, became pregnant in Form 3 and at once her parents stopped paying her school fees.

This is a common predicament for girls in Turkana county, an arid region with high poverty rates and limited opportunities. Teenage pregnancies and boys dropping out of school perpetuate poverty in families.

It is what prompted human rights activist Brizan Were to start Learning Lions, a training centre offering technology skills for girls like Mary and Marvel to open for them new possibilities in life.

Located in Kalokol on the shores of Lake Turkana, the centre is open to young people from the county to learn technology and get linked to jobs in the global market place, leveraging on the digital space.

Were says the idea of setting up the centre was stirred by an ward he bagged for his activism against sexual and gender-based violence in the marginalised county.

He won the Human Rights Defender of the Year Award in 2016 from the Defenders’ Coalition, which opened his eyes to realise there was much more he could do to help his local community.

Were thought of empowering girls affected more by poverty and harmful cultural practices that force them to drop out of school after getting pregnant or early marriage.

The Star toured the Learning Lions campus that solely relies on solar power for all its operations.

Teenage mothers as well as young men are required to commit to six months to one year of learning with a weekly stipend and full boarding.

Were, who is originally from Kitale, has fully integrated into Turkana society and understands the region well.

He has engaged in activism against harmful cultural practices and poor governance at the county level.

The country government donated the land on which Were built the technology centre.

“The award that I won from Defenders Coalition that recognised the quiet work I have done here standing up for human rights, calling our harmful cultural practices like FGM and sexual and gender-based violence was an eye opener,” he said.

And it is not just the Defenders Coalition and the county government that recognised Were's passion. In 2022, President Uhuru Kenyatta awarded him Head of State Commendation for his life-changing work. 

The activist intends to cascade the Learning Lion project beyond Turkana to other hardship areas to harness the potential of young people.

“We chose Turkana, a region that suffers from poor infrastructure and very few job opportunities. If the model works here, it can work anywhere,” he said.

“Learning Lions fights poverty throug digital opportunity. We connect bright African minds in rural Africa to global digital markets, making use of the internet and solar power to access even the most remote regions.”

He fundraises from well wishers to sustain the centre's operations, considering few opportunities for financial sustenance exist in the area.

“Most of the population here still follows traditional pastoralism in relatively poor conditions. Local businesses include basket weaving, mechanical repairs and small kiosks. However, none of these provides significant employment opportunities or meaningful wages.”

The youth are most affected because they can't find a job and move beyond subsistence livelihoods.

And yet with nearly one million inhabitants, Turkana holds an untapped potential of human resources.

Were runs the centre with partners mainly based in Germany.

Its training programmes entail high-value skills in programming, graphic design and media production.

The graduates of the training programmes can then find work as members of the fair-trade creative agency Digital Lions, where they work with international clients on large projects, with more senior colleagues and established project management structures,” the centre says in its latest report.

“Startup Lions [the graduates of the training programme] provide co-working space and entrepreneurship support to those Lions who want to pursue a digital freelancing career or who want to build their own startup.”

In the 2019 and 2020, the centre received 920 applications for 120 places in four cohorts.

The selection process for candidates is long and hard, starting with completing a written application before being taken through a four-hour IQ and aptitude test to assess intelligence and willingness to overcome psychological challenges.

This is followed by a short interview and in the end only 10 per cent of applicants will be offered a place at Learning Lions.