How Entrepreneurs, Artists and Tiny Tembo the Elephant Are Supporting the Sustainable Development Goals
Having the ability create your own adventures outside of the office is important to enhancing any career. The Edelman Escape is a unique program that provides select employees with a mini, one-week sabbatical and $1,500 to escape from their work duties to pursue a dream, goal or experience that will enrich their lives. I had the opportunity to travel to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to spend a week with Ubongo Media, a unique social enterprise providing interactive, educational entertainment for kids in Africa. While there, I helped Ubongo kick start the marketing plan for a new television series and develop a team communications strategy.
Nisha Ligon, CEO and co-founder of Ubongo Media, is hosting a production review in “The Learning Room.” Together with her dedicated team of creatives and content producers, Ubongo is gearing up to launch a brand new series for pre-primary school learners. The animators scribble notes and throw out ideas for making the songs catchier, the colors brighter, and the storylines more succinct, all while providing the repetition and simplicity required for content retention in a three to six year old audience.
In 2014, East African start-up Ubongo Media launched Tanzania’s first Saturday morning cartoon – Ubongo Kids. Anchored by a village full of colorful, brilliant characters (including Uncle T the rapping giraffe, Tiny Tembo the baby elephant and Mama Ndege the flying feathered math genius), Ubongo Kids encourages viewers to tumia ubongo (use your brain) to solve problems and find the fun in learning.
Inspired by the boundless potential of kids and the increasing access provided by the digital revolution, Nisha and her tireless team create Ubongo Kids from top to bottom. Everything from research, to script-writing, recording, animating and television contract negotiation takes place in Ubongo HQ – a breezy, colorful second-floor space in Dar es Salaam full of posters and stickers and whiteboard notes like, “Teaching emotions to three to six year olds: it’s not bad to be sad.”
According to the United Nations, “quality education is the foundation to improving people’s lives and sustainable development.” Without education, we stand little chance of eradicating poverty, hunger, and disease, or of protecting the planet on which we rely – much less ensuring prosperity for all.
Many Global North learners have heard (and probably said) something along the lines of, “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.” As a global community, we’ve made great strides toward getting kids access to primary education. Currently, enrollment in developing countries has reached 91 percent. However, that still leaves 57 million kids out of school and more than half of them live in sub-Saharan Africa. While basic access to primary and secondary education remains an on-going challenge and important area of focus, there’s another piece to the childhood education puzzle.
When a five or six-year-old student arrives for their first day of primary school, what makes them able to learn those life-long lessons we talk about all the way into adulthood? Research from all over the world has shown that the years before we enter primary school are crucial to our long-term success as learners, creators, thinkers, and members of society. So, it’s no surprise that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals also emphasize pre-primary education – and Ubongo Media is on a mission to support three to six year olds all over the world.
As they circle around a cinema screen and point out ways to improve the series, Ubongo Media is laying the groundwork for potentially millions of kids to learn English as a second language, numbers, literacy and drawing with Akili and her animal friends.
“There are a 440 million kids in Sub-Saharan Africa who stand to miss out on a quality early education,” says CEO Nisha Ligon. “If we can leverage technology and media, we can reach millions of them, and make a real difference in outcomes, particularly for kids without access to pre-primary education.”
With their enviable combination of creativity, business savvy and capacity for global thinking within local realities, I have no doubt that Team Ubongo can, and will, do just that.
Berkley Rothmeier is an account supervisor with Business + Social Purpose in San Francisco.
