Deepening Engagement and Learning Through Adaptation

“Muraho, Bonjour, Moni, Wimwega, Ber, Bawo ni, Sanu, Habari, Hello”

There’s something undeniable about being greeted and spoken to in a language that you know and understand. In fact, various studies by UNESCO highlight the benefits of instruction of kids in their mother tongue or what we at Ubongo like to call their heart language – a child’s first and usually more familiar language. These benefits include increased likelihood to enroll and succeed in school, and increased likelihood of parents involvement in and communicating with teachers about their child’s learning. Indeed, research has found that skills and concepts gained in the learner’s mother language don’t need to be re-taught when they transfer to a second language. This is why the adaptation of our content is critical to achieving higher learning outcomes and better engagement with kids.

In 2019, we were able to start adapting and dubbing Akili and Me in 3 new languages (Hausa, Yoruba and Kinyarwanda), we also started working on adapting the show into Chichewa and are looking forward to having a completed season in 2020. Akili and Me season 2 is currently being translated into 6 languages; Luo, Yoruba, Hausa, Kinyarwanda, and Kikuyu. We look forward to having Akili and Me season 1 airing across the continent in these different languages.

Last year, we also had a research study done in Rwanda to evaluate  Akili and Me as an educational media intervention.

The two-week intervention involved primary school students (mean age=7.1 years) who were randomized into two groups (intervention and comparison group). Akili and Me, had not started broadcasting on television in Rwanda, at the time in which the intervention started and the episodes were reformatted using Kinyarwanda to allow for full participation from the kids.  The first few minutes of every episode presented a Kinyarwanda-speaking narrator to guide children. The content comprised  4–6 introduced English vocabulary words throughout the storyline, letter-identification songs, fine motor skills for drawing and writing, story time, and numeracy. Numeracy was presented in both English and Kinyarwanda languages. Findings from the study showed that kids who watched Akili and Me in Kinyarwanda achieved significant learning outcomes compared to kids who watched other cartoons for the same duration of time. This means that kids across Africa can still learn from our edutainment when we adapt them into local languages. 

We keep investing in the African child so that they can have all the tools they need for success.  Adapting and localizing our content for the kids in Africa is one of the many ways we can invest in them. As we do this, we believe and are confident that the next generation will go on to create a better Africa for everyone. So, to all who keep this adaptation process going in one way or another we say; “Murakoze cyane, Merci, Zikomo kwambiri, Niwega, Erokamano, E ṣe o, Na gode, Asante, Thank you.”