Advancing the use of technology in Malawi

Goal: Fight gender inequality in Malawi through new technology in schools

Background: Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world, with over 50% of its population of 19 million people living on less than $1.25 a day. Challenges are particularly acute for girls and women, with Malawi ranking 145 of 159 countries in the 2015 Gender Inequality Index.

Partner: CARE Malawi’s SOAR program provides a high-quality, accelerated curriculum for girls who were unable to either start or finish primary school. It builds confidence and teaches skills the girls need to overcome the social and economic factors that keep them from school, prepares parents to embrace educational opportunities for their daughters, and engages men and boys to be part of the support system.

Project: In May of 2019, a team of employee volunteers from Adobe are continuing the work of previous Team4Tech groups to advance the use of technology in the SOAR classrooms. Previous teams deployed tablets across four ICT pilot schools and delivered initial training to teachers in the use of educational apps. This year’s team will distribute more tablets and create device and classroom management protocols to be implemented across the four schools. In addition, the volunteers will review the usage and results of the prior team’s educational app mapping, and work to add more content to cover any remaining portions of the SOAR curriculum. Finally, the team will work with the CARE Malawi program administrators to help them deploy a new app which will house a digitized version of the SOAR curriculum and link out to the other digital resources the teams have curated for the teachers.