Transforming girls' Education and promoting gender equality through Digital Learning!
“Today, a persistent gender gap in digital access keeps women from unlocking technology’s full potential.” UN In Focus: International Women’s Day
As we commemorate 2023 International Women's Day with the theme "Innovation and technology for gender equality," Lyra celebrates by discussing the impact that our Digital Learning programme has on women and girls in Tanzanian rural areas. We believe that keeping girls in education is fundamental, but so is providing chances for Digital Learning Literacy that will improve their academic performance and safeguard their future.
Although educational possibilities have grown as a result of the new Tanzania Education Plan (TEP), some students in rural regions are unable to attend school due the many challenges they face: There are few government schools in these rural locations, and those that do exist are frequently located far from people's homes, and are not suitably equipped to promote Digital Learning.
Lyra is supporting the critical basic right girls have to receive an education. We construct hostels to provide a safe environment for girls to live in while they pursue an education. We ensure that girls from very poor families have the resources they need to complete their studies through our sponsorship programme. We are working to decrease the gap in digital literacy for rural students, particularly girls, by constructing computer labs in schools.
Over the last 10 years Lyra’s vision is to create thriving rural communities through education.
There are several strands of activity to achieve our vision: One educational program is to build girls hostels to keep girls safe and give them time to study. To date, Lyra has built 14 hostels which have accommodated more than 3000 girls (to date no Lyra hostel girl has dropped out of school due to pregnancy).
Lyra’s second strand for improving the quality of education of all students, has been to install computer labs with offline learning materials through our Digital Learning program.
A third strand ensures that girls from ultra-poor communities can continue secondary school if they so choose; more than 400 girls from the poorest families have been sponsored through the Lyra Girls Sponsorship programme.
As to impact, girls who live in hostels have more time to study and access digital learning materials improving the breadth and depth of their education. For instance in Mazombe Secondary School in the year 2022 all of our sponsored girls achieved Division one, two and three in their form four examinations.
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5 is to achieve gender equality by 2030. At this pace, taking just a couple of examples, it will be the year 2063 before women and men are represented equally in national parliaments, and the year 2280 before we close the gender pay gap. Globally, we know we need to do a lot better, a lot faster. We are proud of a nearly all female team at Lyra that are breaking boundaries, and critically delivering the Lyra portfolio that is transforming the lives and futures of generations of girls.
Happy International Women’s Day!
Let’s #DigitALL by empowering more girls to unlock their potential in digital learning by supporting Lyra to provide access to Digital Learning through www.lyrainafrica.org/donate
#DigitALL #IWD2023 #Lyrainafrica #DigitalLearning #Womenempowerment