In May last year we wrote about the Digital Literacy Programme (DLP) at Lewa Wildlife conservancy in Kenya. As a PACE hub the DLP created a PACE channel (containing all the PACE content) on the Kolibri software they use, and made this available to schools, 23 in total, that they support in the area around Lewa conservancy. DLP helped the schools acquire tablets and smart boards, created school intranets, digitised curriculum material and additional content like PACE and loaded it onto each school’s system. By training teachers on how to use this they have hugely increased the quality of education, and learning outcomes for kids living in previously marginalised rural conservation areas. The teachers can set lessons which children work through at their own speed on individual devices. The kids learn to work independently, have access to more and richer content and build essential digital skills. In 2022 more than 4500 learners and 500 teachers had access to our conservation education resources. As 94% of PACE content is directly linked to the Kenyan curriculum, making it available for teachers to use in their lessons can strengthen their teaching, improve kids results and conservation outcomes.
We’ve been keen to roll this out, to schools beyond Lewa, and are excited that after visiting Lewa in May, LaMCoT, our partners on Lamu Island are already doing just that in the schools that they support on Kenya’s coast. Lewa’s education team visited Lamu last month, assessed the schools, meet with local education stakeholders, and started training LaMCoT’s staff. The education team have Kolibri on their devices, as do two pilot schools. The Education officers Jamila and Aisha are already comfortable using Kolibri and make use of it during their regular sessions with Environmental Kindness clubs in their pilot schools.
We are all excited to see how LaMCoT’s initiative develops – if schools pick up on this (Bright Girls in Shella, below already have) it’s a huge opportunity to improve the breadth and quality of education on Lamu, in environment clubs and beyond.
It’s so good to see positive changes and benefits that conservation is bringing to local communities. A good education is the bed rock for bright futures, and much needed for the girls in some of these areas.
Lewa and LaMCoT – Lamu Marine Conservation Trust – education teams.
You can read more about our involvement with Lewa’s DLP here