Helping Malaysian women work from home

Improving connectivity and communications
DiGi and eHomemakers, a Malaysian NGO, have teamed up to enable a mass messaging solution that will improve connectivity and communications between eHomemakers and over 40 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and micro enterprises under the eHomemakers umbrella. Set to run for two years starting from May 2011, DiGi will provide more than 30,000 free SMSes each month for eHomemakers to communicate with its members through its Distributed Work Management Application (DWMA) solution – a PC-to-mobile collaborative marketing tool that enables eHomemakers to efficiently manage a network of home-based entrepreneurs.

Empowering through telecommunications
This tool allows professional as well as underprivileged homeworkers (a large proportion of these comprise of underprivileged women) to generate an income from home, overcoming their physical and social circumstances by connecting them to an information management platform where they are supported by an e-community of people in similar situations.

eHomemakers is a social enterprise that promotes working from home, tele-working, and the running of Small Office and Home Office businesses by low income families and single mothers through the use of information communications technology (ICT). It was set up to promote economic self-reliance among women in Malaysia where less than 50 % of Malaysian women are employed, despite having higher literacy and secondary school graduation rates compared to Malaysian men.

A worthwhile effort
Mai Oldgard, Vice President and Head of Corporate Responsibility at the Telenor Group says; “This is an excellent example of an “Enable” project, where we extend the benefits of mobile communications to a wider audience. I am very happy to see that DiGi is taking corporate responsibility to the next level and aligning it with business. I look forward to learn about the impact it will have on eHomemakers members and their NGO partners in Malaysia”.