Empowerment youth through storytelling and digital media in sub-Saharan Africa

Tai Tanzania: Offers non-formal education with digital media and storytelling. Addresses issues such as albinism and autism. Utilises YouTube, school classes, radio and TV stations and other NGOs to disseminate information.

Tai Tanzania is a creative Tanzanian NGO providing non-formal education to youth and persons with disabilities since 2013. It uses digital media, storytelling, and technology to produce educational content in the form of animations, comics, and radio drama. Collaborating with radio and TV stations as well as other NGOs, Tai Tanzania addresses issues such as albinism, autism, and blindness, and it disseminates the content throughout the country and beyond. The programmes are also shared on YouTube and used in school classes.

Problems Targeted

Children with disabilities are often marginalized and excluded from education and high-quality content, especially in remote areas.

Solution, Innovation and Impact

Tai uses the power of storytelling and technology to create educational content, including animations, comics, and radio dramas. Its approach involves various stakeholders, especially young people and those with disabilities. Founded in 2020, it addressed such conditions as albinism, blindness, dyslexia, and physical disabilities, with a particular focus on autism. All content is available online and disseminated through school and community outreach programmes. On the website a variety of animations is readily available as YouTube videos, radio dramas are freely shared via the Soundcloud system, comics can be downloaded, and online games can be played. A set of diverse characters appear on the website, such as Njaro, an energetic young innovator with albinism, and Nemo, a blind student who is very talented in mathematics. Through school outreach initiatives over 4,000 young people have been reached since 2020. In addition, millions of viewers and listeners can access the materials through digital channels, television, and radio, and 70 per cent of the audience has reported that they have gained new insights from the content.

Funding, Outlook and Transferability

Tai’s funding model is built on a variety of sources, including grants from international entities such as diplomatic missions, private foundations, and UN agencies. The organization is seeking to expand by producing additional animations and crafting similar narratives in the form of comic books and radio drama. The content, once produced, is available at no cost to other non-profit organizations. (Awardee 2024)

Pictures

Tai creates a variety of non-formal education content for people with disabilities in Tanzania.

Tai creates a variety of non-formal education content for people with disabilities in Tanzania.

Select this picture Select this picture