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Odile Diene, project coordinator, proudly accepts a RED CROSS commendation for implementing our preliminary pilot mode for Santé à L’école in 17 schools serving more than 5,000 students and related teacher training.  Health supplies were carefully selected to meet the unique needs of these rural schools.  This is an action-focused, massively scalable initiative designed for immediate impact with  easily measurable by increased health knowledge, increased health practices, and increased health outcomes. 

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Locally the COVID  health focus was almost exclusively on student handwashing, ignoring the hygiene concerns of the teachers, many of whom are older, with chronic health conditions. Hence our idea to construct teacher-only toilets and sinks– offering immediate health benefits, but also the potential for an enormous motivational impact on the teaching staff.

Imagine sharing toilets with 300+ students pre-covid. Now imagine sharing toilets with the students  under the threat of COVID-10 and you have a sense of the heightened level of stress on these professionals. Our new teacher-only toilets offered concrete evidence that they are valued and respected.

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We also used teacher toilet “down time” to provide hours of training during COVID-19, a period when teacher professional training simply disappeared.  Teachers collaborated online to locate resources of interest to them  that we attached to the inside walls of the toilets. In the course of their “down time” the teachers reflect on new ideas and inspiration quotes. They are now excitedly engaged in locating digital resources and experiencing for themselves how this can  add to their motivation and professional learning…. on the toilet no less!

In the midst of the pandemic, CyberSmart Africa worked with education leaders and teachers to develop and distribute model health lessons. We set forth a plan to dramatically improve health education through ongoing lesson development and distribution because the Senegalese national curriculum urgently needs a “health update.” Many health lessons are obsolete, while vital content is missing. 

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Continuing to realize our vision of massively scalable, low-cost digital learning,  we focused on directly supporting local Elementary school teachers to integrate Android-based apps that extended and support the curriculum with digital resources for whole-class instruction. 

We continued work to build, evaluate, and improve the SmartSenegal knowledge-building mobile platform – a vital tool for teachers to have meaningful connections with learning content, and with each other.  

The launch of Sunubibliotech, the newest and largest municipal library in West Africa provided CyberSmart Africa founder Jim Teicher an opportunity to participate actively as  a Board member encourage ing the community  to enjoy life long knowledge sharing.   Sunubibliotech is an ongoing strategic partner of CyberSmart Africa,

At the invitation of West Africa Com, Jim Teicher led a virtual discussion focused on the fact that teachers are the largest consumers of telecom services in sub-Saharan Africa. Challenging  the telecom ecosystem to reduce the cost of connectivity for teachers, Jim Teicher stated " A market-based strategy driven by the private sector will result in the quickest and most financially sustainable uptake of digital content by teachers. Equipment donation programs simply don’t work because there is no built-in sustainability or scalability."View Jim's presentation  10 Key TakeAways for Telcoms at  The Digital Life of Teachers

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A keynote guest speaker at the annual Teachers of English conference held at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal, Jim Teicher, founder of  CyberSmart Africa, sees that supporting English language instruction is vital to the future of connected learning in Senegal.

Jim Teicher continues to assume a leadership role within the American Chamber of Commerce to strengthen American investment and influence in West Africa. The net impact can be huge, including transparency improvements, and embracing more problem solving and decision making at all levels. 

Just prior to the COVID-19 confinement, we again partnered with the National Basketball Association, This time we transported rural elementary school students (many living in homes without electricity or plumbing) out of their village  to the gleaming NBA Academy training facility in Saly, Senegal. The purpose was to motivate and inspire the students by meeting and playing with elite basketball players. The young students learned that great basketball requires critical thinking and problem-solving skills.   

This was the simplest and perhaps the most powerful of all our 2020 initiatives. The simple act of renovating a school flagpole and replacing an old, shredded flag instantly transformed civics instruction into compelling, real-world learning. Students and teachers raise the flag and sing the national anthem each week with a heightened level of dignity and respect.

Transforming the administration of the school with teacher training and  an office computer – provided by CyberSmart Africa to Ecole Sinthiou Badane . The computer is  now used throughout the day to manage school business and  student and teacher records and reports.

CyberSmart Africa introduced the  KANO PC kit, enabling students to quickly and easily build and then take apart a working laptop computer. So, instead of learning about the parts of a computer by drawing them on a chalkboard, classroom learning became part of a meaningful, real-world experience. 

CyberSmart is continuously involved in many local activities ensuring that our work is accepted by community leaders. Pictured here a cultural event we sponsored at a village school that serves the Wolof, Serer and Fula ethnicities.