Women are still facing exclusion in the use of telecentres, largely because of cultural perceptions that they are responsible for the home; telecentres are also widely perceived appropriate for men to find employment. This paper presents an analysis of the benefits women derive from using telecentres. This study explores how telecentres empower women in the rural communities by analysing three telecentres in the rural setting of Western Cape, South Africa. A qualitative approach involving semi-structured interviews was used to gather indepth details on individual empowerment of the rural women. The results obtained show that some rural women used the telecentres to enhance economic standards, which resulted in individual empowerment in social, psychological, information and economic dimensions. This study highlights the potential of telecentres in empowering women and proposes that the government and NGOs consider the telecentre as a means of addressing gender digital divide issues.

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The term ‘empowerment' has been defined in many ways in different professional fields. Empowerment means to develop a person's full potential to achieve a range of human capabilities. For people to be productive, they may need to be empowered to gasp their sense of self-worth and be able to tackle their personal issues. The study investigates the contribution of ICT tools such as telecentres for the empowerment of women in disadvantaged areas of the Western Cape, South Africa. The essence of empowerment entails the alteration of individual lives to attain goals they may have not been able to achieve. Thus, empowerment is an active, multi-dimensional progression that allows people to comprehend their potential and powers in all spheres of life. The study used the Dimensions of Empowerment Theory to explain the outcome of women's use of the telecentre using the dimensions of empowerment output indicator.

This chapter investigated the use of digital technologies as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Sub-Saharan African countries. The study explored possible ways towards building an open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystem using digital technologies to create awareness of the coronavirus pandemic. The qualitative approach and critical discourse analysis were adopted to critically analyze the effects of digital technologies in the healthcare sector of the Sub-Saharan African region, while the technology determinism theory was used as the theoretical lens of the study. This study advocated the use of digital technologies as an effective tool to disseminate information about infectious diseases to the citizens of the Sub-Saharan African region.