Learning Lions is enabling young adults in impoverished rural areas of Africa to live a life full of opportunities in their home area. The students are equipped with ICT and graphicskills to become self-sustained by selling digital services. The goals are to fight poverty, reduce rural depopulation and encourage entrepreneurship. For our innovative idea, we recently won the Google Impact Challenge 2018. Help us to provide more trainings, laptops, internet... = more digital opportunities!
Rural areas across Africa often have poor infrastructure, limited access to markets, very few formal job opportunities, and consequently suffer from high levels of unemployment and little opportunity for moving beyond subsistence livelihoods. The youth represent over 75% of Africa's population and although they should be its driving force, most of them are out of work with no job opportunities. Connected problems are hopelessness, alcoholism, migratory pressures and urbanization.
There is one opportunity that could be life changing for many. The internet and the rise of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector opens up a multitude of new online job opportunities, even in the most remote areas. This is where Learning Lions kicks in. The non-profit program provides talented and hardworking young adults with an intensive training in specific high value ICT skills increasingly demanded on international markets resulting into sustainable self deployment.
We believe that our idea can be scaled in a big range. The demand for ICT skills is increasing, resulting in a huge amount of job opportunities. Furthermore, the skills of our students are improving and expanding steadily. This way, our approach can adjust quickly to changing market demands. One job benefits the whole surrounding of each graduate. Children, siblings, cousins and loved ones will be taken care of and can finally be supported in their choice education and career.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
