Bridge for Change, a youth run organisation in Dar es Salaam outline their approach to improving literacy. Presentation by Ocheck Msuva at Britain Tanzania Society Education Group, May 2017

1. A student-centered approach
towards improving literacy
Ocheck Msuva
Bridge for Change Founder and Executive Managing Director

2. What is literacy?
“The ability to read and write”
▪ Confidence
▪ Mindset Growth
▪ Door to opportunities
▪ Agency - Mastering the decisions in one’s own life
▪ A way to solve problems and visualise dreams
▪ A way to communicate with the rest of the world

3. It is all about Perspective
Kids love asking ‘Why?’
Why should I do this?
Why should I care?
How can we answer their questions if we
do not speak their language?
How can we understand how they think
unless we talk with them, unless we see
things from their perspective?
What would a solution from a secondary school student look like?
How do you work with them to build something from their solution?
We need to change OUR perspective.

4. Do young people have a good reason to turn
up on the first day?
The first thing that we did in our attempts to approach literacy
was to give young people a reason to engage.
In 2014, we ran a Story Book Club at a secondary school. Unlike
for other programs, students turned up to our Club every week…
Why?
We talked to them to find out, and we discovered what it is
that they really care about, (and it was not their literacy!);
they came because they had fun, because their friends
attended, because they could talk to people who show an
interest in them.

5. Think Big and Self-Discovery
Cambridge Development Initiative (CDI)
and Bridge for Change (BFC) have been
working together on the “Think Big
Challenge”.
A competition that gives secondary school
students the opportunity to design
innovative solutions to problems they
face in everyday school life.
The project is designed to reflect what
people want and what they care about.
Students working together with facilitators at a Think Big
Workshop.

6. Student Solutions
SIKU YA MSICHANA (Girl’s Day at School)
The Problem:
Girls on their periods face mockery, embarrassment and consider it
to be taboo. As such, they miss their classes and their literacy
suffers as a consequence.
The Students’ Solution:
To have 1 day/week that is focused on reading about menstruation
so that they are well informed and breaking the taboo by writing
poems, essays and doing role play that teaches other people about
menstruation so that it is no longer a cause for embarrassment.

7. Concluding Remarks
▪ Our focus on literacy alone is stopping us from developing solutions to the
problem that will work.
▪ We need to focus on what students want, and how we can work with them to
learn how to speak their language.
▪ A student-centered approach to improving literacy is the only way to design
solutions with the greatest chance of success.