Ramp up African Virtual Bridging School

Hello, I am Co-Director of the African Virtual Bridging School (AVBS), a small company in South Africa that aims to support disadvantaged young people, especially young girls and women.

We give youth a chance to find out about career opportunities outside of school, to learn about STEAM subjects and also to get to know the Iinternet better to use, Social Media and Metaverse. These are future skills that young people in Africa need.

So far we have conducted our W.O.W (work orientation workshops) virtually via zoom with young people from South Africa, Ghana, Cameroon and Zimbabwe. It was a complete success.

Now we need support for a project in Kenya and in Uganda. In Kenya we are affiliated with the NGO Life Foundation Aid (LFA). The organization works in the Kakuma refugee camp, better a refugee town in Kenya with over 200,000 people and you want to offer the young people a meaningful life in the afternoons.

We train trainers in a "Train the Trainer Program" for the "Basic Life Skills" and for the W.O.W -Series, same in Uganda in a region of Kinkiizi.

We need the money to equip the young people and trainers with technical equipment in the "Virtual Info Points" (VIP) like printer, PC, large screen, beamer, laptop so that we better collaborate virtually.

Likewise, those involved need paper for trainers' notes and the "Life Skill Challenges", a kind of calendar with tasks that the children and young people can complete over a period of four weeks and then reflect on what they have achieved. AVBS and I, as co-director, collect the donations and transfer the money directly to the partners in the various countries so that the devices can be bought locally and not imported with excessively high customs duties. Just one example: for 500 sheets of A5 writing paper we had to pay customs duty €130.00. The children enjoyed painting, which made us happy!

All donors are informed through our newsletter and the use of the donations and get insight and, if desired, contact with the young people who have benefited from it.

We send the money to the countries and monitor the construction of the virtual information points on site