Lycée Liziba

I'm a computer engineer passionate about education. After working two years as assistant lecturer at University of Lubumbashi, I found that it was more impactful to work with students when they are younger. I then decided to work in a secondary school "Lycée Liziba" in Kinshasa. I'm responsible for the integral training of students (leadership, values), the continuing education of teachers, and the integration of parents into the educational project.

Specialist in digital education, I have animated several communities around technology (Google Developers Group, JCertif) and entrepreneurship (Startupgrind) in my hometown Lubumbashi. I now supports young girls to acquire 21st-century skills and build an exceptional professional career in digital.

49.5 million girls in Sub-Saharan Africa are out of school according to UNESCO. In the Republic Democratic of Congo, the situation is worse: 52.7% of girls aged 5 to 17 do not attend school. And for those attending, the education system is poorly equipped and doesn't help most of students to reach their full potential. 

"Lycée Liziba" is a girls' school which was created to offer a strong educational program with personalized mentorship for students and their families. Girls from 3 to 18 receive high quality and accredited education (french, english, math, computer skills, etc.). All the staff is 98% female so that students can relate to role-models and grow and develop into thriving, productive and engaged young women. 

Investing in education and training for girls and women has proved to be one of the best means of achieving sustainable development and economic growth" - UN ‘Platform for Action'

According to UNESCO, 130 million girls between the age of 6 and 17 are out of school and 15 million girls of primary-school age—half of them in sub-Saharan Africa— will never enter a classroom. (Source: World Bank). In D.R.Congo, more than 3 millions of girls aged from 5 to 17 don't go to school.

The DRC ranks 135 out of 157 countries in terms of human capital, with a   human capital index  score of 0.37%. One reason is that education system is also plagued  by poor quality, the education system is poorly equipped. In the DRC, teachers are under-trained and women occupy only 27% of primary schools and 11% of secondary schools. 

The country to lift out of poverty needs more well educated people, more girls educated. Poverty is the greatest barrier to accessing an education. This can be overcame by investing in girls and women. Girls’ education is a strategic development priority. Better educated women tend to be healthier, participate more in the formal labor market, earn higher incomes. 

Good education is given by good teachers.  This is the challenge Lycée Liziba wanted to face:  to raise a generation of women leaders giving them a high quality education. 

Lycée Liziba is a girls' school which offers a safe environment to receive a high quality education and leadership programs to become women leaders. There is a strong and accredited curriculum (french, english, sciences, etc.) and leadership workshops which cover a wide range of personal development and leadership skills.

Three points are our secret recipe of success: 

• Teachers: they don't just teach, they inspire. A teacher is a role model That's why 98% of the staff are women. Each one of them is a potential mentor and have a group of mentees to follow. 
• Parents: we believe that parents have a great impact on their daughters and are key partners in education. School organise three individuals meetings a year to discuss, to prevent and solve potential problems.  School also offers workshops to parents about education, impact of social media on kids, nutrition, etc. 
• Students mentorship: it is aimed at ensuring that the students are assisted in realising their potential, in helping them become leaders. 

Quality education involves good teaching methods and learning materials in an environment conducive to learning. Teachers benefit from continuing education in methodology, didactic techniques for primary and secondary education, new information technology and communication

Lycée Liziba is located in Kinshasa. The school has opened in 2009 with 18 students, now it has 361 girls aged between 3 and 18.  The school has kindergarden, primary and secondary. 

Parents seek for a high quality education for their daughters and an environment where theirs girls can  grow in confidence and competence. The students represents 265 families. The majority are from low middle class. Parents are involved in the educational project of the school by meetings, workshop, etc. 

Students are involved in the life of the school. They are provided with opportunities to reach their potential as a leader through serving (cleaning their classrooms, ring the bell, order in the library, etc.) and stewardship.There is a school Student Council who are elected by the student body and whose job it is to oversee and run many of the school activities.  

56 girls has already gratuated from the school and all of them went to university. They are studying law, economics, data cloud, etc. They are all over the world: South Africa, United States, France, Turkey, and the majority in D.R. Congo. Some of them created students organizations, one has written book, another starts a small company, etc. 

At Lycée Liziba, we are elevating opportunities for girls who have less opportunities than boys especially in Democratic Republic of Congo. We give them high quality education and skill to become leaders who will change the country. And we make it possible by presenting to them role models at a daily basis: 98% of the staff are women (teachers and administration). They can see with their owns eyes that women can build a country. It really changes when you see that your principal, your mathematics teacher, your librarian are women in a country where women's contributions are not valued. 

I've studied computer engineering and I've never thought that I would end up in education. But the bad experience I had at University pushed me to be the professor I rarely met during my studies. 

Lycée Liziba was built in 2009 by a non profit organization AFEDI (Association Africaine Pour l'éducation et l'instruction). AFEDi promote schools that offer a strong educational program with personalized mentorship for students and their families. AFEDI has now two schools: Liziba for girls and Bozindo for boys. 

When I knew about Liziba educational project of pairing academic formation with character development, I decided to join. I've started working at Liziba three years ago. My job consists of setting up training plans for :

• students in soft skills (leadership workshops, extracurricular activities, etc.)
• teachers: continuous training (public speaking, didactiques), mentorship training,
• parents: subjects of workshops such impact of social media on kids, nutrition, adolescence, etc. 

I follow up our mentoring program: pairing mentor with mentees, solve potential problems, etc. 

Education is a long term process and the true impact can be seen 10 years after. But it's a chance to be part of such a project. 

I'm a women and I've studied computer engineer. We were only two women to graduate in my promotion. During my university studies, I've been in the faculty student council, I was often the only woman in the room. In Congo, there is a famous quote which states that women doesn't build a country. This leads to situations where women are kept behind and never try. 

I'm convinced that the impact of women can be tremendously high in my country. We like football in Congo and I've once heard  this metaphor: "How  can you win a play with half of the team out of the ground?"  That's why  it's so important to empower girls since the kindergarten. It's also necessary to help parents to change the narrative: how do they talk to their daughters?  What do they except from them? 

The role of a teacher is also crucial. They need to be role models and push girls to reach their full potential. 

So you can imagine how happy I'm in my work because it consists to encourage parents and teachers at a daily basis to empower girls. I'm lucky to be part of a cultural change.

I've started working in Lycée Liziba three years ago and I'm in directors' board. 

I'm passionate about women issues especially girls education. I've been working in that for almost 15 years.  

During my studies at University of Kinshasa, I've cofounded a magazine for girls by girls. It was named "Et si elles s'en mêlaient?" which means what if girls speak out?  It was a tribune for all female on campus: studies, opportunities, health, etc. 

Then I've ran a Google Developer Group for Women in my hometown Lubumbashi to push girls to master programming! A rewarding experience!

I've cofounded with friends a startup "P&R Tech" which was building websites for companies. In the same time, I've ran a chapter of "Startup Grind" to help entrepreneurs (female too) to connect. 

I gave classes as assistant lecturer at University of Lubumbashi in faculty of engineering. The number of girls was so little andI tried to be an elder sister for them. 

I also had the opportunity to go to Rome to have seminars about educations at University of Holy Cross. It has been a international experience where I had  friends all over the world. It has widened my horizons ang give me the will to give back to my community. I wanted to tell to younger ones: "The world is so big". 

Now, I'm at Liziba. We are 4 (all women) in the director board and together we are working to raise a generation of women leaders.

Education has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our school has been closed since march 19th. We had to reinvent ourselves and start an online education. 

Everything was against us: 

• the school didn't have an online platform
• most of our teachers don't have an email 
• our family students don't own computers 
• internet access is expensive 
• Electriciy shortage is our normal way of life. 

But I was lucky enough to have a good team, motivated teachers and engaged parents. I have a friend who is a software developer and offered to congolese schools  an educational platform for free and which could be used with smartphones.

We decided with my team at school that we would use that platform and  Whatsapp to deliver online classes for our students. Some parents and teachers didn't understand that decision, finding it unrealistic. 

We had to convince parents and teachers. I had to grow in patience to understand and to work as a team. I has also meant being professional by studying what was done in another countries.  

We setup all our "tropical online class" process,  schedules, evaluations, digitizing notes, etc. The success has been HUGE. All the story here. 

In 2014, I was running Google Developers Group of Lubumbashi and my team decided to organize the Google Days of Lubumbashi and we would invited some of the Google Staff. 

Let me put you in the context, Lubumbashi is the second town of Democratic Republic of Congo which was among the 5 poorest countries of the world. And Google Staff would come there...

My team and I accepted the challenge and setup a two days event with important themes like impact of technology in education and in public governance. We invited head of schools, State institutions directors, students. 

We made a very professional web site. Thanks to Internet, I contacted a tech organisation founder who had friends working at Google and told him the impact of our event for the country. He then talked to his friends at Google who accepted to come to Lubumbashi. Three of them came. Our event received 800 persons. It was just amazing. 

The team was so proud. Young people was so empowered because we had technical workshops.Heads of schools were so inspired and convinced that they shouldn't continue to ignore technology.  It's among my best souvenirs. 

Lycée Liziba is owned by a non profit organization which is called AFEDI (Association Africaine pour l'Education et l'Instruction). AFEDI has two schools: one for girls (Liziba) and one for boys (Bozindo). 

Afedi is the school board chair  while the direction of the school is given to directors board. 

Lycée Liziba is an accredited congolese school. 

The work at Liziba is unique because academic education is as important as personal development education.  The school wants to raise a generation of women leaders. 

And for that, three aspect are really important:

• collaboration with parents: they are considered as close partners to reach that goal. Three individual meeting are done during the year and workshops around education are organized for them at school. 
• Importance of teachers as role mode: 98% of the staff are women in order to offer role models in a daily basis. The principal, the mathematic teacher, the librarian are women. So that students can really assimilate that women can really change a country despite the little value given to her contributions in the society. 
• Mentoring: students receive on one-on-one mentoring session in order to help them reach their full potential. 

1055 people are impacted by our work currently: 415 students (361 girls and 54 boys in kindergarten) who receive classes and mentorship sessions, 530 parents (father and /or mother) who receive workshops, 60 members of staff who receive continuous formation, 55 alumni who receive support and information from the school. 

In one year, we will serve 1200. The prestige of the school has raised with giving online classes during Covid-19 while all congolese schools were closed so we hope to have more students. 

In 5 years, we will serve 2000 people. With the experience gained during this pandemic digitally speaking, we want to offer our expertise to others schools (teachers and  students): givong online classes, experiences of our mentorship and leadership programs . 

Our goal for the next year is to improve the digital skills of our teachers, our students and their parents: email, web searching, typing, etc.  in order to introduce digital in our classrooms and to prepare our students to face the fourth industrial revolution. 

We also want to consolidate our mentorship and leadership program in order to offer it to other schools by seminars and online classes. 

The plan to achieve it is: 

• Building a proper computer lab. 
• Acquiring tools: Liziba has a computer lab with 9 computers and 50% of teachers don't have computers. The first step will be to have well equiped computer lab: computers, camera, internet, etc. 
• Digital training: for teachers. It will be about web searching, having an email, social media,  educative platform, etc. 
  Digital training for students: for the moment they have one hour of information technology per week. We will enrich the program. 
• Workshops with parents: the importance of digital litteracy.  
• Documentation of the mentorship and leadership programs: the content, the impact, etc. In five years, we hope to have 100 short videos about mentorship and leadership.
• Building an online platform to share the content: website and youtube channel to share content, organisation of online classes.  In five years, we hope to setup 3 online trainings for teachers. 

With our teachers better formed, we could share with other congoleses schools our experiences and hope that many congolese girls will be trained to be leaders. 

These are the barriers which may limit your impact in the next year and the next five years: 

• Financial: the school doesn't receive any grant from the State. It lives of school fees paid by parents.
  Parents pay school fees: it's a mean of $1200 per year (kindergarden is $1000 per year and secondary $1400 per year). This money is only sufficient to pay staff and to pay back a loan taken to build the current building. 

• Cultural:
  • we will have to face resistance of change of moving from traditional education to an hybrid one (present and online education) 

• Financial: we will look for international grants and local ones. 
• Cultural: doing steps by steps organizing workshop and working with early adopters who can be ambassadors of the cause. 

For the moment, we work with 

• Bozindo (other school of Afedi), we essentially share ressources (curriculum) and organize common training for our staffs. 
• Malaïka: all-girls school in Lubumbashi. We visited their school and they visited us. We share experiences in education. 
• Minzoto: a kindergarten. Our teachers went for a one-week training there. 
• Bilembo: a cultural centre where our teachers and students go for trainings and workshops. 

Our business model is simple. The school give an high quality and accredited education with a mentorship program. Students learn french, english, information technology. Their horizons are widened. Some of our alumni are in countries such as South Africa, United States, Turkey, etc. and they are having successful university studies. A huge investment has been made in the buildings in order to create an inspirational environment for students. 

Parents pay per year. In kindergarten, they pay $900, in primary $1200 and in secondary $1300 or $1400 (it depends of the grade).

Democratic Republic of Congo has 4 types of school: 

• The international ones which has fees around $5000 per year
• The private congolese one with a good level of education but expensive for the prestige, localisation around $2500 or more
• The private congolese around $1000 or more: you find good ones such as Liziba and bad ones
• Publics schools are free (parents pay less then $200 per year): you find very good ones and very bad ones. All of them are overcrowded and the infrastructures are bad. 

For the quality of education offered, Liziba is not expensive. The school doesn't receive any grant from the State. The school is sustainable with school fees. It can pay teachers and pay back a loan taken for building. But the school can't invest in new tools such a computer lab or raise the salaries of the staff who do a remarkable work. 

Paiements of school fees help Lycée Liziba to be sustainable. We can pay teachers and run daily activities. We can also pay back a loan taken to build the school. 

To have a computer lab, we will need to look for international and local grants. Some local companies have helped us in the past (Total, FBNBank, etc.) and we hope they will continue to help us.

We look for $121200 to be able to prepare our students to face the fourth industrial revolution:

• building of 2 computer labs: $750  * 48 squared meters * 2 = $ 72000
• computers: $300 * 95 (35 for teachers and 60 for students) = $ 28500
• Internet connection: $200 * 12 = $ 2400
• camera, router, printer: $ 1500
• salaries of two teacher and one technician( 10 months): $ 6300
• furnitures (chairs, tables, etc.): $ 10500 

To be able to do that, we are looking for grants (international and local ones). The school has  $ 8000 to start something.  

Elevate Prize can help me to overcome the financial barrier. If we receive the grant, we could be able to train our students to face the fourth industrial revolution and to share our expertise to others thanks to digital means. 

The funding will help the school work. But the Elevate Prize can put us in a network where we can learn from best practices of others. 

To receive the Elevate Prize from MIT will put lights on the school and could help us to find others partners. 

We would like to partner with:

• Teach for America: to learn from their best practices in education and their approach. 
• MIT Alumni:  to learn from their best practices. Our school is still young and we would like to have engaged alumni as MIT. 
• Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation: Oprah Winfrey inspires us a lot and it would be great if her foundation help us to expand our school.