Hub of hope
WITH THE RIGHT RESOURCES, REFUGEE CHILDREN IN UGANDA ARE ABLE TO KEEP UP THEIR EDUCATION – EVEN WHEN SCHOOL ISN’T AN OPTION
Nakivale Settlement Camp in Uganda is home to more than 115,000 refugees, of which over a quarter are children under
17. Though there are schools in the camp, around 46% of children aged six to 13 are not enrolled, held back by challenges like school fees, distance to schools and a lack of facilities and teachers.
Now, the children in Nakivale can access education in a more unusual setting: 12 solar-powered, wifi-enabled outdoor kiosks, fitted with touchscreen computers loaded with learning resources. Known as ‘Hello Hubs’, they are the work of UK-based charity, Hello World, which is aiming to bridge the education deficit, that currently sees around 263 million children go without schooling, by providing the facilities to allow children to learn autonomously.
There are now 25 Hello Hubs in three countries: one in Nigeria, 12 in Nepal and 12 in Uganda, built in the autumn of 2019. “If you combine all the funding that’s available to solve the education deficit and apply it to building schools and hiring teachers, you don’t even come close to reaching every child,” explains Hello World’s founder, Katrin MacMillan.
Communities invest their time and resources to build their ‘hub’, which helps children to develop engineering skills as well as confidence. Once they’re in place, children use their local hub in two ways, MacMillan explains: to play games on the educational software on the computers and to explore the internet.
They’re already having a positive effect. “We have seen a massive increase in the children’s learning rate,” says MacMillan. “Teachers close to hubs have reported that children’s test scores have increased significantly.”
MacMillan and her team are now researching the full impact of the hubs, in an attempt to prove the power of technology to educate children in poverty.
“There is a massive understanding deficit in the opportunity of ed-tech to fill the education gap,” she says. “We think that we’re well positioned to help the whole development industry have a think how budgets are allocated educationally, so that we genuinely are able to reach every child.”