IPA, one of Educate!’s highly-valued research partners, created a video highlighting the importance of investing in research and development in international development work. Read the full blog for some quick highlights!

Head of External Relations Rachael Miller Buck sat down with Policy & Partnerships Strategist Donnalee Donaldson to chat about her role, COVID's impacts, and what she's looking forward to.

Promoting gender equity is core to Educate!’s mission. For over ten years, we’ve implemented an evidence-based gender equity and inclusivity strategy within our in-school model, with real and measurable results. Our current challenge is learning about how our distance learning model supports and uplifts girls, and where we can improve its gender equity outcomes.

Our commitment to designing solutions with equity front of mind is as critical now as it has ever been, and we can always strive to do more and do better. Even youth with ample support and access to resources are experiencing a loss of learning due to this crisis, and those without it will face even greater challenges in their recovery. As we continue to iterate, experiment, and build on Educate!’s equity-focused approaches, it is our hope that our solutions will provide youth, both in and out of school, with the skills they need to overcome the inequities they face during and after the pandemic.

One of the most important lessons for social impact organizations and entrepreneurs is that good intentions alone do not create impact. That’s why we’ve worked hard to build an impact-obsessed culture that aims to create meaningful, measurable impact on life outcomes for youth. Our rigorous evaluations help us better understand Educate!’s impact as well as how to strengthen it, and this knowledge led the development of our models as we adapted to COVID-19.

During school closures, Muwonge regularly tunes in to listen to Educate!’s radio lessons on his local station. Muwonge set out to create his own classroom at home, seeking out individualized support and hands-on experiential learning through Educate!’s VIP Bootcamp. Leveraging his skills and the knowledge gained from the Bootcamp, Muwonge has successfully started his first small business: selling charcoal briquettes in his community.

In 2019, Educate! launched a social enterprise entity called NawiriPro (“thrive professionally” in Kiswahili) to build our first model for out-of-school youth. We recently caught up with a few members of NawiriPro's first cohort, and we are excited to introduce you to Wilberforce, a budding young entrepreneur from the Kakamega Province in Kenya. We sat down with Wilberforce to learn more about his story, his business, and his experience in Educate!’s newest solution.

As we work to reinvent and redefine traditional secondary education, we are committed to continuous learning and sharing the lessons we learn with others in our space. Our goal is to further best practices within the youth skills conversation and use our insights and research to build a robust body of evidence that other implementers can leverage to serve youth. We believe that education should be tied directly to improved life outcomes for youth, and our Research and Development (R&D) efforts ensure we continue gathering the evidence that allows us to strengthen this link by iterating upon what works. Our obsession with impact and with making evidence- based decisions led us to create an “Experience Bar.”

Over the last ten years, we’ve been moved by the extraordinary ways our female students have broken down gender barriers and taken action to enact positive change. From young entrepreneurs and innovators to scientists, educators, and activists, Educate!’s female graduates have gone on to be changemakers in their communities.

The outbreak of coronavirus has flipped the script on schools, classrooms, and education around the world. In order to serve youth during this critical time, our skills-based model has been reimagined, and we have moved swiftly to adapt our in-school model for distance learning through radio and phone. After about seven months of implementation, we’re doubling down on our commitment to building our solutions on a foundation of data collection, turning our attention to determining how best to measure the impact of our new distance learning model.

When the coronavirus pandemic swept across the world, 190 countries closed their schools. In response, youth, teachers, governments, and social impact organizations are collaborating to support youth during this turbulent time. Educate!’s long-standing partnerships have placed us all on a team, working together to respond to the challenges 2020 has brought into young people’s lives.

Samuel is an Educate! Scholar and Student Business Club President in the Educate! Exchange in the Rwamagana district of Rwanda. Amidst school closures and lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Samuel set out to find ways to support his community during as well as put into practice the skills he’s acquired through the Educate! Exchange.

Women are on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak, both in the workplace and at home. In order to keep girls learning during this time, Educate! has set out to deliver components of the student experience digitally in order to ensure that girls maintain a connection with their education while gaining critical hard and soft skills to be resilient throughout this unprecedented crisis.

As we all learn to adjust to the challenges caused by COVID-19, we continue to be inspired and encouraged by our students, who have overcome difficult challenges to become young leaders, entrepreneurs, mentors, and role models in their communities. One student who has particularly inspired us is Irene Kisakye, one of Educate!’s first Scholars and superstars in Uganda.

We believe that as an American-founded organization working in Africa, with a predominantly African staff, we have a special responsibility to speak out against the violence that has been done to people of African descent in the US.

As we all navigate new challenges in our lives and communities, we’d like to update you on Educate!'s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

For nearly eighteen years the insurgence of the Lord's Resistance Army in Northern Uganda incited violence. Today, the region still grapples with high rates of poverty, low primary and secondary school enrollment rates, and underdeveloped infrastructure. In spite of this, young people in Northern Uganda and young women in particular –  like Educate! Mentor Fiona – have been driving progress and acting as agents of positive change for their communities. 

This January, Educate!’s Kenya Program Director, Diana Mwai, helped chair the “Ministerial Exchange session” at the 2020 Education World Forum – joining the largest gathering of education and skills ministers in the world. Diana leads Educate!’s programming and government engagement strategy in Kenya, bringing diverse experience and a unique perspective to this interactive panel.