In a bid to lift the standard of education in Nigeria, especially among the underprivileged, an EdTech start-up, Teesas last weekend provided portable personal computers to children of Little Saints Orphanage, one of the prominent orphanages in Lagos State. It plans to continue the donation to other orphanages in the country.
The provision of the tablet PCs is expected to enable the students to access elibrary, online resource and information for better education especially in the digital world. The donation was under the company’s Donate Programme, a CSR initiative to support underprivileged and out-of-school children in attaining academic excellence.
Additionally, Teesas also promised to provide a router with a one-year data subscription to ensure that the children can access the educational videos via the internet. Teesas tutors will also volunteer their time to visit the children to monitor their academic progress and provide free tutoring support, and damaged tablets will be repaired for free.
The company which started the Donate Programme this year plans to reach about 200 orphanages in the country with refurbished tablets donated by individuals. Imose Technologies, a sister company of Teesas, refurbishes the tablets and installs the Teesas Education App that contains curriculum-aligned educational videos and ebooks.
Speaking at the presentation, Osayi Izedonmwen, founder and chief executive officer, Teesas, said that the Teesas Donate Program is a corporate social responsibility initiative that aligns with the company’s mission to liberalise access to education in Africa.
“Our ‘Donate Programme’ is focused on bringing education to underprivileged children across Africa starting with Nigeria. Teesas aims to liberalise access to quality education and our mission is to ensure that no child is left behind”, Izedonmwen, said.
He explained that the programme encourages individuals to donate their used or damaged tablets to Teesas, which refurbishes them and install Teesas education App in the devices and deliver them for free to orphanages and displaced people’s homes across the country.
Explaining why Teesas is embarking on such c social responsibility just after one year of its operation, Izedonmwen said the initiative speaks to the quality and strength of firm’s mission. “We are impact driven organisation that is focused on liberalising education and for us it is not a money making venture. Even though we are a young company, we are setting the trail by focusing on delivering quality education to the underprivileged and that a testament to how much we believe in our mission”
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He called on partners, government agencies and organisations to collaborate with Teesas to reach more children in under-served communities especially when over 18 million children are said to be out of school in Nigeria.
Izedonmwen believes that Teesas can help bridge educational gap in collaboration with the public, like-minded impact-driven organisations and other stakeholders such as the government.
“We believe that our educational app is Africa’s learning gateway because it opens up opportunities for learning by children anywhere. For instance, children impacted by insurgency who cannot go to school can continue learning with these refurbished tablets that come pre-installed with the Teesas app,” he said.
Teesas is an education App that is focused on bringing grand breaking curriculum- aligned content to children in the lower years of education especially children between 3-11. “We have rolled out in Nigeria and plans to expand to other parts of Africa and we are amazed with the adoption of Teesas’ educational platform by schools and parents as we deliver our content in English and local Nigerian languages”, Izedonmwen said.
Responding to the gesture, founder of Little Saints Orphanage, Bamidele George while thanking Teesas stated that the Teesas Donate Program was appropriately timed as the orphanage home had just equipped its library with computers to facilitate digital learning among the children.
“One of the things God said to me, when He gave me this vision of starting an orphanage was to give the children the best education. Today, all the children in the orphanage are in private schools. We also want to ensure that they are able to compete favourably with privileged peers elsewhere”. She was enthused that many of them left the orphanage as best university graduates.
In May, Teesas was named among five innovators of the Morgan Stanley 2022 Sustainable Solutions Collaborative Cohort for increasing educational opportunities across the African continent. To this end, the EdTech firm received a $250,000 award to increase the impact of the organisation. Izedonmwen added that among other things, the award is making it possible for the Teesas Donate Program to reach more orphanages and underserved communities.
