By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A leading entertainment company in Africa, Ubongo, has lamented the dearth of educational content in Nigeria, asking for the return of the children’s education and entertainment belts on the local television and radio stations.
The Country Representative of Ubongo, Mr Tayo Olaniyan, while speaking at a capacity-building initiative in Lagos on Monday, October 4, 2021, he said, “We are sharing our expertise with the Nigerian broadcast industry as key partners; we want to inspire a lot more creativity for education and entertainment interventions by broadcast houses within the country, and we’re advocating for the return of the children’s belt on television and radio.”
The seminar themed Storytelling for Change was mainly for broadcasters, educators and content providers for children programmes.
He stated that in line with Ubongo’s mission to reach children everywhere with edutainment, the firm was partnering with key players across the broadcast industry to drive the reach of its relevant African centric entertaining entertainment and educational content.
Mr Olaniyan added that Ubongo will continue to seek opportunities to contribute and support efforts aimed at scaling the capability of broadcasters to develop local entertainment content across Nigeria.
On her part, the Head of Education and Research at Ubongo, Ms Cliodhna Ryan, stated that, “The interactive workshop is a platform to share human-centric insights, discuss the role of educational media in keeping children learning and best practices for designing media-based learning for kids and youths.”
She explained that the firm seeks to use the opportunity of the workshops to take broadcasters through Ubongo’s process of human-centred design so that they can co-create content with children.
“As co-creation partners, we don’t believe in creating content as adults in isolation, we believe that children are a key part of the creation process. For this course, we’re taking them through our storytelling for change approach,” Ms Ryan added.
“We believe that stories are powerful and that children learn best when they’re entertained. So, the key to educating a child through mass media is to ensure that they’re highly engaged in what they’re watching or listening to.
“For this reason, we use stories, songs and games for children to be active listeners and viewers when they’re engaging with the content rather than passively receiving the content,” she stated.
Also speaking on the project, Ms Iman Lipumba, Director of Marketing and Communications, Ubongo, reiterated that the firm’s objective is to create fun, localised and multi-platform educational media that reaches millions of families through accessible technologies noting that Ubongo creates engaging and locally relevant edutainment for African learners.
She revealed that through its multiplatform and fun learning programmes, Ubongo Kids and Akili and Me, Ubongo is helping millions of kids find the fun in learning through whatever technology they have, whether radio, TV, mobile, web and even offline using SMS based systems.
Studies show that Ubongo’s programmes significantly improve school readiness and learning outcomes for kids and also promote social and behavioural change for kids, caregivers, parents, and educators.
By leveraging localised media on accessible technology, Ubongo has created an extremely cost-effective and high-reach solution to help close the literacy gap for millions of children at the base of the pyramid in Africa.
Modupe Gbadeyanka