Fundalo

Access to basic education resources is a myth in rural Afrika. Resources such as text books, classrooms, personal material, school shoes and teachers are scarce. A number of cultural and systemic challenges such as extremely long distance to schools, a very low school to people ratio, burdensome chores and responsibilities, child-headed families and child marriages result in young children either dropping out of school in the village or unable to enroll at all for their basic education. Globally up to 250 million children are out of school, with most (90 million) from developing countries (Statista Data). In Afrika alone 40% of primary school children are affected, that's about 40 million young kids (UNESCO Data). This situation has been made worse by the ravaging COVID-19 Pandemic over the past 2 years. It has left a further 6 million children at risk of not returning to school. Interventions through online schooling have been made and these are more accessible in urban areas. In rural areas, internet connectivity is non-existent therefore making this innovation impactless. Another major challenge with online school in greater Afrika is the stratospherically high price of data connection which makes it unobtainable for most households. In countries like Zimbabwe, this is further spurred on by a rotting economy with teachers on strike therefore a non-functional education system. In rural areas, the combination of lack of access to smartphones and computers and the lack of resources places children at even greater risk of staying out of school. This degenerates into an illiterate population, vulnerable women and girls, and poorly performing economies due to lack of skilled labour.

Fundalo is an audio-only platform that delivers virtual education via a dedicated radio channel to unserved and underserved rural communities in Afrika. Radio is the most accessible form of telecommunication with an almost 100% geographic coverage density. Most rural households have a radio which can be tuned to a required frequency channel. We provide lessons on a daily schedule akin to a normal in-person class. The content is distributed across 3 channels to cater for different grades across primary school and secondary school levels. Our lessons are pre-recorded by trained professional teachers who already work in education and are the best at what they do in their respective subjects. Programmed lessons run throughout the day time and a repeat of the same lessons runs throughout the evening to nighttime. This makes school available even for children who may have responsibilities that cause them to be unable to attend during the day. Further repeat lessons are provided in crash course format during the weekends. Since most households already own radios, this solution cuts the cost of acquiring the hardware which may be unaffordable to most. Our future plans include the distribution of affordable dedicated radios - hardware devices - for all households. The content available varies from subject by subject courses, daily lessons, exam preparations, awareness campaigns and extra-curricular learning activities such as music, word games and poetry. Our platform renders the advantages of equally inclusive access, flexibility and low cost. High tech solutions create inclusion gaps, therefore low tech widespread and low level solutions are of best fit in Afrika

Fundalo directly educates young children living in rural areas of sub-Saharan Afrika. This covers both primary and secondary education. This population subgroup is currently vulnerable in more ways than one that make education inaccessible or unreliable. Some of these hindrances include lack of teachers, schools, resources and gender-specific challenges such as child marriages for young girls. Government has not made enough significant effort to curb this challenge. This vulnerable group has been the most severely impacted by the pandemic leaving most children without the hope of returning to school or starting school. Our solution cuts across the whole divide by adding a layer of service on a spectrum that they currently have access to, which is radio without any additional costs to the people.

As citizens of Zimbabwe all life long, we have witnessed the struggle of accessing basic education. We have been continuously affected by cycles of teachers going on strike due to government not adequately resourcing them and have suffered the effects of getting denied education. Having attended boarding school in rural areas, we managed to share and interact with counterparts from the surrounding village. We saw their on and off attendance to school due to many problems. The primary school adjacent to ours, was a testament to the lack of equality in accessing the rights of education. We saw first-hand, the derelict structures, the shortage of classrooms and the deficiency of enough teachers. Throughout the years we have been involved in many projects serving rural communities through various clubs e.g. Initiatives of Change, and Green Associates. Notwithstanding the experience of staying in our own homes and having relatives in rural areas fail to pass school due to circumstances beyond their control. 

We are aiming to partner with education drivers and organisations who can provide strategic help to expand our solution and to lobby with government departments and to facilitate the expansion of production of content, and to lobby for the distribution and acquisition of radio broadcast licenses. We hope to connect with likeminded individuals who have the goal to make the world better and equal for everyone.

Most solutions being developed for Afrika are very high tech yet the problems need to be solved from a people-facing technology approach. Our solution eliminates exclusion and guarantees access for everyone at the grassroots by taking advantage of an unutilized layer of already existing network. It is fit-for-purpose and highly scalable. With the aim of producing and distributing dedicated radio hardware, this has the ability to explode globally into other underserved regions such as Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.

1. To provide education at no cost to 1 million children at primary school through our radio channel which they can tune in at any time within one year
2. To provide education at no additional cost to 1 million children in secondary school  through our radio channel which they can tune in at any time
3. To double the pass rates currently recorded in rural Afrika by providing extra material such as exam revision classes, crash courses and night time repeat programming within the next 3 years
4. To distribute affordable radios to poor households by partnering with schools as distribution agencies within the net 3 years
5. To provide the platform and technology involved and help other agencies develop similar solutions across the region and the globe within the next 5 years

1. The state of approvals for broadcast licensing
2. The number of subjects (amount of content) offered on the Fundalo platform
3. The rate of reduction in the number of out of school children in rural areas
4. Completion rate of primary education, lower secondary education, upper secondary education among rural school children
5. Participation rate in organized learning at ages below the current enrolment age at primary school
6. Proportion of schools partnered with Fundalo over the next year
7. Number of teachers creating content for the Fundalo platform

Our solution presents the advantage of unparalleled access to the delivery method. Radio penetration is the highest compared to other communication technologies in Afrika. It is as high as 90% in South Africa. Education platform channels exist on TV and these have not seen significant impact in rural areas due to the gap in TV ownership. Currently channels such as DW report that their largest audience is in form of radio channels in Africa. This presents our delivery method as a fit for purpose solution. Having that in frame, means accessing educational content over the air is already welcome and bolstering its structure to complement the current methods is a plugging solution. By delivering these classes via radio, students have the flexibility of learning at home, on the go and during their free time. The result of this is improved participation in education, augmenting physical classes and for those without access to physical schools. An increase in literacy, pass rates and creation of a skilled labour market is the outcome.

We leverage on radio frequency technology that is applied in mass broadcasting services. Our back end is powered by high quality modern audio recording techniques that reduce noise, interference, and inaudibility. Techniques such as audio equalising, frequency modulation, gain control and pop filters that have been used traditionally in studio broadcasting, and music recording are applied. Big data analytics is applied in order to understand trends, patterns and insights in the data of the problem such as statistics on geographically disadvantaged areas so as to enhance targeting of services.

We strongly work with vulnerable communities as agencies and staff and community liasons in order to foster inclusion. We aim to recruit a balanced number of men and women in our core team. We partner with more female teachers for the creation of our content. Our platform enables equal access for boys and disadvantaged girls.

We provide education services to underserved communities. The community needs education as a basic human right, and moreover to produce competitive skilled labour in the job market. Better educated people have  higher chance of earning aa living from better paying jobs. Our revenue is derived from sponsored partnerships with education-oriented organisations, higher and tertiary institutions, scholarship providers and non-governmental organisations. We aim to raise funds to sustain the business through the sale and distribution of affordable dedicated radio hardware to augment access to the platform via traditional radio.

We plan to run sponsored partnerships on content with education drivers and organisations such as universities and scholarship providers

We also plan to sell low cost affordable radio hardware in the future

These two income streams will cover costs of content creation and general business expenses

We have currently not received any form of funding. Our current expenditure on research and development is bootstrapped from personal finances.