It is amazing what youth are capable of when given the right tools and opportunities. With the opening of our Youth Center in 2022, A2S also opened our very own Information and Communication Technology Center (ICT Center). In this center we have 22 laptops and wifi available for student use.
Our A2S After School Academy kids have had very limited access to computers up until this point. In January of 2023, we decided to take a group of 20 kids and offer them computer basics classes with the premise that eventually they will learn how to code and develop websites. We hired Ray, a member of our Entrepreneur Empowerment community who runs his own business related to web development. Ray started these 20 SS2 and SS3 students (high school juniors and seniors) in January with a lesson: “A computer is a device that can manipulate, store, process, and retrieve data.”
That’s where we started. This is a computer, this is how you turn it on, this is how you type. We checked in with Ray and the team periodically to see how things were going. A month or so in, he shared that they had started to teach WordPress and the kids were learning how to make basic web pages.
In the spring of 2023, our U.S. and Nigerian teams were working together to plan the summer vision trip. We had volunteers from the U.S. coming to experience A2S, Nigeria, and to help out with our programs by sharing expertise with our staff and students. Caroline, our After School Academy Director, suggested we do a “tech fair” during Vacation Bible School with our U.S. volunteers. From a logistics standpoint, we couldn’t quite see how that would fit with the timing of the program. VBS already had a lot on the schedule and hardly enough time to get the lessons done, so we took “tech fair” off the itinerary. We thought it was a good idea, but maybe something for another time.
To our surprise, when we arrived in Nigeria we were told during VBS, “there’s a tech fair in the ICT Center, please have the volunteers rotate to check it out”. We didn’t know what we were getting into, but whatever it was, it was already set up. So we went with open hearts and curious minds to see what the team had come up with.
I stepped into a narrow room filled with kids at laptop stations. At the front was a projector. Progress, one of our seniors, was stationed at a laptop hooked up to the projector so that we could see his screen. One by one our kids came up to speak while Progress navigated the A2S E-Learning platform they had created as a team.
Two years prior, I had spent time with Uchechi in our Davidson office brainstorming what she was calling “Access to Learning” or A2L. One of the things she noticed, having studied in the U.S., was the lack of resources outside of class available to students in Nigeria. In the U.S., Uchechi always had access to professors, YouTube videos, articles, books, and more to deepen her understanding and to help her study. Her friends back home didn’t have the same resources, and she wanted to create an online learning platform as a solution.
We made progress on this project, but it soon hit the back burner amongst our usual workflow. The crazy thing is, we never told the kids or our staff in Nigeria what we were working on. This new e-learning site our kids had developed was entirely their own idea. They had brought to life what we had been dreaming about for two years!
Each kid as they came forward to speak told us about what team they were on, what parts of the website they developed, and they thought of everything! They had course modules set up so you could enroll by subject and complete practice tests- all based on the Nigerian public school curriculum. They developed an about page that explained about A2S and the purpose of the platform. First they want to pilot its use with the After School Academy, but our kids don’t stop there. Eventually they want to open up its use to every child in Nigeria so that everyone can have access to the resources they need.
I stood there with Andrew and Uchechi- all of our jaws on the floor. We were so impressed. Aigbekan, a former A2S computer engineering scholar who has been volunteering with the class, looked at us and insisted, “this was all them. I just gave them the knowledge to build what they wanted to build.” We later laughed at the fact that we had fought so hard to take the tech fair out of VBS. It ended up being the most exciting and surprising part of our whole trip this summer.
This story and this computer class is just the beginning of what’s possible at A2S. After sitting in brainstorming meetings with Andrew, our strategist Erica, and our leadership team in Nigeria, I don’t think any of us thought that this computer class could have turned out with this incredibly thoughtful project in such a short amount of time. It shows how our kids are truly driving the direction of A2S. All we have to do is give them the tools they need. They clearly know how to take it and run with it to create something that isn’t just awesome, but something that fills a need, helps out their neighbors, and lifts everyone up towards a brighter future.
By Laura Knight, A2S Development Manager
