Upendo School

Location: Arusha, Tanzania (Usa River Valley)

Sponsors: Thanks Be To God Foundation, Afric Aid Inc., and The Kessel Family

Launch Date: Fall 2012

Approximate number of students and teachers: 2 Classrooms of 25 Students and 4 Teachers

Number of devices: 60 Wi-Fi Kindles

Students’ grade level: Primary 4 and 5

Types of books: Textbooks, storybooks, and reference materials

Deployment model: E-readers in a classroom set

Students take devices home: No

The story: Joseph Kitia, a former regional game warden and graduate from the University of Cambridge 1965, spent 30 years as a guide in Tanzania before founding the Upendo Middle Primary school. Seeing so many children on the streets in one of the more impoverished communities around Arusha, there was certainly a need to help these children get off the streets and find a future. Support for the school has come through AfricAid whose mission is to help provide girls in Tanzania with an opportunity to have an education. At 5%, Tanzania has one of the lowest secondary school graduation rates for girls in the world. In a three way partnership with the Thanks Be to God Foundation, the Upendo School will be the first school in Tanzania to receive an e-reader project for primary students.

Nganana and Nambala Primary Schools

Location: Arusha, Tanzania

Sponsoring Organization: Nelson Mandela AIST and Thanks be to God Foundation

Launch Date: 10 May 2013

Approximate number of students and teachers: 900 students and 50 teachers

Number of devices: 300 Wi-Fi Kindles

Students’ grade level: Primary 4-7

Types of books: Textbooks, storybooks, religious books, and reference materials

Deployment model: E-readers in a classroom set

Students take devices home: No

Other notable points: Teachers take e-readers home

The Story: Tanzania and many other African countries face the challenge of insufficient text books and access to teaching and learning materials in the primary schools. Five to ten students share one textbook. The needs assessment conducted by Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology (NM-AIST) at Nganana and Nambala primary schools indicated. It was the launch at Upendo School in November, 2012 that brought the e-readers idea to NM-AIST. The recently launched e-readers project for the two less privileged primary schools in Arusha, Tanzania will indeed bridge the gap and enable access to over 36,000 e-books and teaching materials. It assures better education for the local children who will impact on families and the community. Thanks to the collaboration between NM-AIST and Worldreader to realize the project.

Chamwino Secondary School

Location: Chamwino, Tanzania

Sponsoring Organization: Cindy Strong and The Frank-Ratchye Family Foundation

Launch Date: Summer 2014

Approximate number of students and teachers: 461 students and 23 teachers

Number of devices: 75 Wi-Fi Kindles (25 in Summer 2014 + 50 in January 2015)

Students’ grade level: Secondary

Types of books: Storybooks, reference materials, entrepreneurial tools

Deployment model: E-readers in a library/learning center

Students take devices home: No

The Story: In 2012, Cindy Strong was asked by a doctoral student to go over and start a library in his village in Tanzania. She said “yes.” She then spent a lot of time researching how to set up a sustainable project/library in a somewhat rural context, and eventually went to Tanzania in July/August of 2012 to set up an infrastructure for the library. A large building had already been designated, but it had no furniture, some bug-eaten books, lots of magazines, some non-germane textbooks from West Virginia, and a good set of new science and math texts that were actually tied into the country curriculum. There were almost no books for pleasure reading. She took (and donated) a brand new computer, new software, some resources to aid in setting up a small library, and some English language books written by African authors. The Worldreader e-reader project will bring 5,000 additional books to the library.

The Worldreader program is the first digital reading program of its kind in the Dodoma and Singida Regions of Tanzania. Since the introduction of the initial 25 e-readers, student performance and English comprehension has improved and more students are passing their annual examinations. In early 2015, Chamwino Secondary School will receive an additional 50 e-readers thanks to the Frank Ratchye Family Foundation. This will mean an additional 5,000 e-books to the library.

Kwakoko Secondary School

Location: Same, Tanzania

Sponsoring Organization: Ryan Shortal for and on behalf of the United States Peace Corps

Launch Date: February 2015

Approximate number of students and teachers: 400 Students and 20 Teachers

Number of devices: 35 Wi-Fi Kindles

Types of books: Textbooks, storybooks, and reference materials

Deployment model: School Library

Students take devices home: No

Jifundishe Free Library

Location: Ngongongare, Arusha, Tanzania

Sponsoring Organization: Jifundishe

Launch Date: October 2015

Approximate number of students and teachers: 100 students, and open to the public

Number of devices: 35 Kindle 7’s

Students’ grade level: Grade 7, and the library is for all levels

Types of books: Fiction and non-fiction

Deployment model: Library

Students take devices home: No

The Story: The Jifundishe Free Library was established in 2005 in a small location, and has since grown and now has available rooms for study, space outside, enough seats for all patrons, and books from primary school to university level. At the library there are many programs established, one of which is the Independent Study program (IS). This group of people/students could not continue with secondary education due to various reasons, so here they get a free space to reading books and teachers who will help guide them in reading and studying. Another program is pre-Form One tuition. Every year they receive students who graduated from seventh grade and help prepare them to join secondary school. The plan for the future, after this group of grade seven finishes their program, is to start with a group of IS to learn how to use e-reader for their academic subjects, e.g Science, English, Biology. After IS students are able to use the e-readers, the library staff will teach all other daily library users how to use the new devices.

Chome Primary School

Location: Chome, Same Region, Tanzania

Sponsoring Organization: My Father’s Mission/World Health Services

Launch Date: January 2016

Approximate number of students and teachers: 200 students and 9 teachers

Number of devices: 25 Kindle 7s

Students’ grade level: Primary 4 & 5

Types of books: Textbooks, reference books, and recreational reading books

Deployment model: Classroom

Students take devices home: No

The Story: Chome Primary School is located in a remote region of the South Pare Mountains in Eastern Tanzania and serves approximately 200 students. The school was in great need of reading material for its students. With the support of My Father’s Mission/World Health Services, 25 e-readers with 200 books on each device, were put into student use in January 2016. The community rallied around this project and refurbished one of its classrooms to become a “reading room”. The reading room was improved with a new floor, ceiling, paint, tables and chairs. With additional aid, they were able to run electricity to this room, which made it the first primary school classroom in Chome to have power. The e-reader project has created a momentum to continue improving other classrooms, bringing them up to modern day standards. Teachers and students worked hard throughout the training process to learn how to use the e-readers effectively. Plans are being made to bring e-readers to Chome Secondary School in January 2017.

Nyaragusu Refugee Camp

Location: Tanzania

Sponsoring Organization: The Vodafone Foundation

Launch Date: March 2016

Communities Impacted: 184k people with 200 students

Number of devices: 35 Kindles

Age Range: Primary and Secondary

Types of books: Storybooks, novels, biographies, & classics.

Deployment model: Library

Students take devices home: No

The Story: Two BLUE Boxes for Libraries were deployed for two separate programs. The first was sent to Kakuma camp in Kenya. This camp has 184k people with 200 students in a single classroom and is comprised mainly of refugees from South Sudan, Sudan, and Somalia. The second will be sent to Nyaragusu camp in Tanzania in late 2015. Most of the population here is French – speaking from the DRC & Burundi. Vodafone has launched each BLUE Box in tandem with its ‘Instant Kit Network’, which contains 25 tablets with open-source content, a projector, a charging kit, and a router from Safaricom.

Abercrombie and Kent Philanthropy

Location: Ilboru, Gijedabung, & Mwikantsi; Tanzania

Sponsoring Organization: Abercrombie and Kent Philanthropy & donors.

Launch Date: May 2016

Communities Impacted: Students at 3 schools across the Ilboru region

Number of devices: 175 Kindles

Age Range: Lower and Upper Primary

Types of books: Textbooks in English and Swahili, storybooks, and reference materials.

Deployment model: Classroom

Students take devices home: No

The Story: Through dedicated strategic investments in education, conservation, healthcare and enterprise, AKP inspires their guests and staff to actively support philanthropic endeavors. Abercrombie & Kent Philanthropy has partnered with Worldreader to deliver literacy in Africa through the innovative approach of e-readers. In 2016, AKP sponsored three BLUE Boxes for schools, each box containing 50 e-readers loaded with 100 books each, to be deployed in Tanzania: Ilboru, Gijedabung, and Mwikanzee Primary Schools. Ilboru in particular serves students with disabilities, namely hearing, physical, and mental.