Catalyzing Life-Changing Literacy and Numeracy for 1 million children in Sierra Leone and Tanzania
September 24, 2024 (New York) – Imagine Worldwide’s Co-CEOs Rapelang Rabana and Joe Wolf today announced Imagine Worldwide’s Commitment to Action, which will provide 1 million primary school children in Sierra Leone and Tanzania with reading and math skills via education technology over the next three years. In addition to boosts in literacy and numeracy (with gender parity), Imagine’s goals include improvements in enrollment and attendance, solar power for 1250 schools, training for thousands of teachers, and jobs created around installation and maintenance. Imagine launched its commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI ) 2024 Annual Meeting in New York.
“The Clinton Global Initiative’s focus on ‘What’s Working’ is completely aligned with our organization’s commitment to accelerating foundational learning using evidence-based edtech designed to serve children in the most challenging environments,” said Rapelang Rabana, Co-CEO of Imagine Worldwide. “We are deeply honored to have our commitment to expanding our tablet-based learning solution in Sierra Leone and Tanzania recognized at the CGI 2024 Annual Meeting.”
Hundreds of millions of children in Africa are illiterate and innumerate. 89% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa are unable to read and understand a simple text by the age of 10 and 42% of global youth will be African by 2030 — increasing the need for scalable solutions. Talent is universal, opportunity is not, which is why Imagine Worldwide has developed a tablet-based personalized learning solution that can work in all environments (operates offline and is solar powered) for less than $7/child/year.
The impact to date has been extraordinary, accelerating literacy and numeracy rates, increasing school attendance and enrollment, and achieving gender parity. As one young girl in Malawi shared, “I like the tablet because when I make a mistake it does not move on to the next student. It asks me to try again and when I try, I get the right answer.” Imagine Board member Michael Horn, co-Founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, says that Imagine Worldwide is “the purest example of Clay Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory in action.”
After the successful launch of the tablet program in Malawi in 2023 (reaching national scale in 2029), Imagine Worldwide is now partnering with the Governments of Sierra Leone and Tanzania to improve those countries’ literacy and numeracy rates. Imagine’s CGI Commitment to Action is to serve 750 schools (250,000 students/year) in Sierra Leone and serve 500 schools (150,000 students/year) in Tanzania by the end of 2026 — and continuing to serve those schools to 2028. Imagine is contributing $6mm of the required $20mm of philanthropy needed to fund the initial expansion (including hardware, training, research, and long-term infrastructure and capacity-building), and unlock a subsequent wave of Big Aid funding to further scale the programs nationwide.
Thanks to the partnership with CGI, and the commitment of the governments and communities in Sierra Leone and Tanzania, Imagine’s work will catalyze the elements necessary for national scale.
See the tablet program in action in this brief video: Just Imagine.
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About Imagine Worldwide
Imagine Worldwide’s goal is to solve the literacy and numeracy crisis for millions of children in Sub-Saharan Africa. With nearly half of global youth being African by 2030, the urgency to find a scalable learning solution is paramount. We partner with philanthropists, governments, organizations, and communities to provide child-directed, tablet-based learning that is accessible, effective, and affordable.
About the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)
Founded by President Bill Clinton in 2005, the Clinton Global Initiative is a community of doers representing a broad cross section of society and dedicated to the idea that we can accomplish more together than we can apart. Through CGI’s unique model, more than 10,000 organizations have launched more than 4,000 Commitments to Action — new, specific, and measurable projects and programs – that are making a difference in the lives of more than 500 million people in 180 countries.