Entrepreneurship training pedagogy by non-governmental organizations and women economic empowerment outcomes; a case of Pangea Network, Gem Constituency, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of entrepreneurship training by non-governmental organizations and women economic empowerment outcomes in Kenya. Specifically, the study sought to assess the influence of Pangea Network entrepreneurship training methodology and women economic empowerment in Gem constituency, the influence of Pangea Network entrepreneurship training program content and women economic empowerment in Gem constituency and lastly establish how learners’ characteristics through Pangea Network entrepreneurship training influence women economic empowerment in Gem constituency. Descriptive survey and phenomenology designs were used to measure the influence of independent variables on the dependent variables in Pangea women’s empowerment projects in Gem constituency. The study targeted 215 respondents, out of which 206 were women trained by Pangea Network, the rest were Pangea Network staff and local administration. The total number of respondents was 150 (70%). The study used census sampling technique. The researcher used structured questionnaires to collect data from Pangea network beneficiaries (trained women). A pilot test was done on the questionnaire to test for validity, and reliability measured by Cronbach’s Alpha. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics with the help of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). Further, unstructured interview guides were used to get in-depth information from the key informants. The qualitative data was organized into themes in the form of comprehensive written descriptions. The researcher used tables and figures to show descriptive statistics of frequencies, percentiles and standard deviation. The study concluded that entrepreneurship training methodology influenced women economic empowerment in Gem constituency, entrepreneurship training programme content influenced women economic empowerment in Gem constituency and Learners’ characteristics through Pangea network entrepreneurship training influenced women economic empowerment in Gem constituency. Also, the study concluded that entrepreneurship training pedagogy had influence on the economic empowerment of women in Gem Constituency. The study recommends that management of the Pangea network can adopt other entrepreneurship training methodologies that can enhance women economic empowerment in Gem Constituency, the management of the Pangea network can improve the entrepreneurship training content to capture other areas of concerns in the women economic empowerment and, the management of the Pangea network can encourage the women involved in the economic empowerment to practice behavioural change towards the program. The researcher recommends a comparison study between Pangea Network and other organizations offering entrepreneurship training activities.