To commemorate the International Women’s Day, this publication is written in honour of all women, especially the widows all over the globe who are going through some form of crisis.

Crisis is a form of challenge in the life of an individual, family and societies. When crisis comes, it comes like a bomb blast that explodes and often without notice. Crises usually shatter one’s dreams and visions and it can be as a result of divorce, loss of property, sickness, financial embarrassment and the death of a partner as in the case of a widow or widower. These crises leave wounds that take time to heal and even when healed, the scar remains. Scars tell stories and remind one of the ugly past full of griefs that are never ending. What happens during a period of crisis is better imagined than experience, as they are not usually palatable.

A Widow will experience one or all of the following crises:

• • Grief: An experience of grief no matter its magnitude.
• • General Depression: There is a general feeling of sadness and hopelessness. In period like this, thinking becomes incoherent and illogical, there is also the problem of loss of appetite accompanied by weight loss, insomnia and difficulty in concentrating, as there may be loss of memory.
• • Withdrawal from society: Many widows, more than widowers, tend to withdraw from the society. This phenomenon is common among young widows. Such widows are customarily requested to dress in black clothes to indicate their widowhood status and they therefore withdraw from the society.
• • Hysteria and Insomnia: A condition of uncontrollable fear or emotion, showing other strange behavior. A widow goes through crises of sleeplessness. She would not just be able to sleep, as the memory of affection shared before the death of the partner lingers. The thought of how to care for the children left behind can also prevent the Widow from sleeping. Widows may pass through some level of psychotic disorder.
• • Socio-cultural Crisis: Many Widows experience this crisis as a result of the social and cultural norms generally accepted by a group of people. So very sad to say that many widows are maltreated and exposed to the practical aspect of these norms when the husband dies.
• • Crisis of who owns the property. Widows are seen in some custom or tradition as property that can be inherited or be dispensed. They are subjected to ridicule, scorn and deprivation. Many of the widowhood rites are practical means of torturing the widow to submission or rob her of her property. Many widows have been thrown into abject poverty as a result of unwholesome cultural behavior.
• • Crisis of Acceptability: Many widows are looked at with contempt, as the death of the husband is always pointed to anytime the widow is in a quarrel with others. Many in-laws are cruel and nagging and not accommodating.

How Innovation and Technology can Benefit Widows in Crisis

In spite of the fact that crisis may signify the presence of danger, it however indicates a great opportunity as well. A widow can overcome crisis, based on how it is being handled. One of the way in which a widow can deal with crises today is through innovations and technological means.

What then is innovations and technology? A technological innovation is a new or improved product or process whose technological characteristics are significantly different from before. These innovations and technology include inventions such as the internet, cell phones, artificial intelligence, audio visual technology, etc.

These innovations and technology can bring about numerous benefits to women, especially the widows by improving their economic, health, social and personal well being.

Here are some ways in which innovations and technology can benefit women, particularly the widows:

• • Improved access to Information: Technology, such as the internet, can provide women with access to information on markets, health, education and other essential services. This information can help the widows to make better decisions about their businesses, health and other aspect of their lives.
• • Increased economic opportunities: Technology can provide women, especially the widows, with new economic opportunities such as online market-places and e-commerce platform. This platform can help the widows to sell their products and services to a wider audience, increasing their income and improving their financial stability thereby breaking the yoke of poverty!
• • Enhanced Education and Skill: Online learning platforms and educational resources can help women, especially the widows, to gain new skills and knowledge, which can improve their economic prospects and increase employability.
• • Improved healthcare: Telemedicine and other digital health technology can help widows to access healthcare services that may be unavailable in their communities. This can improve their health outcomes and reduce the burden of healthcare costs.
• • Increased Social Connectivity: Social media and other communication technologies can help widows to connect with others, build relationships, and form supportive networks. This can reduce social; isolation and improve mental health.

Overall, innovations and technology can provide widows and other women (particularly rural women) with new opportunities to improve their lives and livelihoods. However, it is very important that these technologies are accessible and affordable to all women, regardless of their socio–economic status or geographic location.

To achieve the goals of using innovations and technology to resolve the many crisis of Widows, policies makers must do the following:

• • Make policies that will enable internet network providers to make available the internet network service in rural and remote places where widows live.
• • Policies makers must budget and allocate enough funding for training on technological innovations.
• • Policy makers must make available, in the community, telemedicine and other digital heath technological devices which can help widows to have access to good health care service on time and at reasonable price.

In Conclusion

In conclusion, it is therefore imperative for policy makers to make widows matter by showing them love and care and making policies that will impact widows who do not have power to compete in an economic system that is virtually and technologically competitive.

Implementation of innovation and technological means must therefore be seen as an act of librating widows from all kinds of emotional, economical, physical and sociological trauma.