Education deprivation
Nearly 623,500 children in Ghana are not enrolled in primary school and 1 in 4 children do not attend Kindergarten. Girls in the North of the country only receive about four years of education, three years less than the national average. Furthermore, there is a huge educational divide between children in urban and rural parts of the country. Many children in rural areas don’t attend school at all because their parents either cannot afford it or else they are ignorant to the benefits of education.
Driving force
Mobile operator Tigo wanted to address this issue. In 2015 they partnered with non-profit organisation Street Library to create the E-Library on Wheels, an initiative designed to provide education and encourage digital inclusion for children in rural communities.
The bookmobile
The E-Library on Wheels is exactly what the name suggests, a mobile library van that has been retro-fitted with tables, chairs, laptops, kindles and tablets to introduce children to their first digital educational experience, as many children in rural Ghana have never seen or touched an e-reader before. As well as practical lesson that can be taught on the devices, there is a library of digitized books installed on the laptops, giving the children a varied selection of reading opportunities.
Well read
A year after launch, the E-Library on Wheels had benefited over 20,000 children in deprived rural communities within the Greater Accra, Eastern and Volta regions of Ghana.
“My favourite story is Goldilocks and The Three Bears. I like the pictures. I read it six times and I know how to read it on the computer.”
Dodzi Adomako, aged 6, Greater Accra, Ghana
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Region
Ghana 5.6037° N, 0.1870° W
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