Ubongo, a pan-African edutainment social enterprise, continues its vision of equipping Africas next generation with the educational foundation, critical skills and positive mindsets to change their own lives and communities for the better. Through an event “Ubongo’s Storytelling for Change Rwanda” which happened on June 3, 2022, they brought together experts working in education, media, policy and technology to have conversations and insights on how to use storytelling to drive change and transform lives. Ubongo usually manages the full life cycle of media-based learning and social and behavioural change communication projects from initial research and human-centred design with users, to content creation of world class animation, video, audio and print media, to distribution of content to millions of families and impact evaluations to assess outcomes. They are aware that half of the African population are children and youth, and believe they have the potential to solve the continents most intractable challenges from health, to governance, to poverty. But they need the education and inspiration to get there. According to Tamala Maerere, Outreach and Communications Manager at Ubongo, over 27 million households watch and listen to their children’s educational cartoons each month and their goal is to reach 60 million kids by 2025. She said they have made quite a big progress, declaring that Ubongo broadcasts its content in 27 countries that are in 13 languages, adding that children are at the centre of everything they do. “Before creating any content, we make sure that the kids are present. We engage them and they approve all the content before it goes out,” she said. We make sure that the content resonates with them, that they understand it, find it engaging and can actually learn from it.” According to Isaie Micomyiza, the Ubongo Representative in Rwanda and an Adaptation Consultant for Africa Great Lakes Region, Ubongo started airing their programme on the national television, RTV, in 2017 and has done the different events in different countries like Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, among others. He said that after adapting their content in Kinyarwanda, they experienced high demand and their YouTube channel became the fastest growing among other channels in that area in 11 languages. According to him, doing an event in Kigali was the time to meet experts in childrens literature and media, and look at the ways to furnish what they do to keep helping people. He declared that since all children cannot watch edutainment videos they make, they are looking for partnerships so that they can avail screens in rural areas at the ECDs, public libraries or youth centres where children can gather and watch them. All the participants in the event were given Ubongo-branded certificates. Bercar Nzabagerageza who works with National Early Childhood Development Program (NECDP) was among the participants. He said it was a way to train those who already write children stories, adding that they learned better ways to do so by involving kids in the process of producing content while being made and putting videos into the countrys context. He added: “We still have less content for kids and with this workshop, it can help. The challenge we have is that the content is only airing on TV and there is a need for another way to deliver content to children like by delivering TVS and radios to those in the rural areas.” Fiston Mudacumura who represented Rwanda Children’s Books Organization (RCBO), an umbrella organization for children’s books publishers in Rwanda, said they agreed to support Ubongo’s Pan-African Book Drive Campaign by donating 200 copies of a child mag and over 100 other books that contain different stories. Books donated under this campaign will be gifted to under-served kids across Africa, including those living at Nkombo Island in Rwanda. People who want to take part in this campaign can drop their donated books at RCBO, Kigali Public Library or Kigali Arts Centre. He commended Ubongo for their content, adding that RCBO also has people who write and illustrate and seek to partner with Ubongo to provide enough content for children. Maraika Gwiza who works with Ubuntu Publishers was also a participant. She said she has learned a lot including adapting writing content for kids by going to the field and knowing childrens needs instead of just writing for kids as an adult. You have to go on field, understand their needs, know what makes them want to read, and understand their education; how they should learn things, she said. Since she writes stories, she plans to use the knowledge to write more inclusive and adaptable stories.
