iLearnabout
A Collaborative Project Powering Conservation Education on the African Continent
Closing the Gap in Access to Quality Conservation Education
ANAW and ANAW-USA are very excited to be collaborating with the iAfrica Foundation on their exciting new project, iLearnabout - an innovative digital education initiative that aims to fill a critical gap in children’s education by providing teachers and learners across Sub-Saharan Africa with a range of freely available digital resources on the topic of environmental and conservation challenges and their solutions. At the heart of this project is the realization that improving education and changing young people’s mindsets is essential in the battles against poverty, environmental degradation, and animal mistreatment - a conviction we share with iLearnabout and the other project partners.
Inspiring Action on Issues that Will Affect All of Our Futures
This project will be the first of its kind to bring interactive e-learning and downloadable resources to African schools and after school clubs on core environmental topics. The content is all aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and designed mainly for children in upper primary and lower secondary school, providing a comprehensive, immersive, and positive learning program designed to inspire and enable practical action for conservation.
Why iLearnabout?
Currently, there is no digital conservation resource that includes all the vital topics required to teach a holistic environmental education program in Sub -Saharan Africa. Conservation organizations and NGOs still mostly use printed format, which is expensive to produce, distribute, and update. Across Africa, conservation organizations and NGOs develop content for school children on specific topics, regions, or areas of expertise. However, there is insufficient cross-sharing of the content, so scarce funds are wasted by unnecessary duplication, inefficient dissemination, and poor up-take. By partnering with iLa to develop and disseminate this generic resource, we will help provide free access to world-class digital education content to young people across Sub-Saharan Africa, reducing duplication and cutting costs for organizations.
“Your initiative is just the kind I have been hoping will be taken.”
— Sir Partha Dasgupta, FRS, FBA, Professor Emeritus of Economics University of Cambridge, following his appearance in the BBC documentary 'Extinction: The Facts'
iLearnabout’s Approach
The iLearnabout content is designed to enhance existing elements of national curricula by being taught as extracurricular lessons in after-school clubs being modern, fun, and engaging - leading to better attendance and learning outcomes. It is downloadable and suitable for online or offline use on tablets, computers, projectors, and mobile phones. The project uses a a three step learning methodology: understanding, awareness, and action.
The approach of the project is also highly practical and cost-effective: The iAfrica Foundation are experienced in providing digital solutions for learning contexts which may have limited resources, internet connectivity, and electricity supplies; and iLearnabout resources will be available for FREE across Sub Saharan Africa, resulting in huge cost savings for organizations and freeing up scarce resources.
