This December marks the first full year of Avallain Foundation operating as a tax-exempt non-profit 501(c)(3) here in the US. This status gave our donors and us the freedom to engage in numerous charitable projects around the world. Thus, 2017 has been a very productive year for Avallain Foundation, with many notable highlights and achievements [...]

Since the mid-20th century, there have been numerous international projects using digital technology as a means of affecting change in developing countries, a concept known as "information and communication technologies for development" (ICT4D). Such projects have ranged from optimising industrial efficiency with computer systems to increasing general levels of education by providing digital learning software [...]

One of the most pernicious aspects of HIV is the impact it can have on families with HIV-positive members, especially children. In Kenya alone more than 200,000 children under 14 are infected with AIDS and more than 1 million children are orphaned because of it or left without the necessary care. In the Nairobi suburb [...]

In this day and age, it may come as a surprise that more than a billion people on the planet still lack even the most basic literacy skills. International Literacy Day was created to draw attention to these people, who are so often marginalised as a result of their illiteracy. With the theme of "literacy [...]

The educational situation in Kenya is problematic and has been for some time. A study carried out by the Kenyan Ministry of Education found that 1 in 4 children of primary school age either left school without any qualifications – or have never been to school in the first place. In some areas, those who [...]

In many countries, literacy, numeracy and digital literacy are basic rights, provided to every citizen. But what of a developing country like Kenya, where in some areas, highly heterogeneous groups of people need to be educated with little access to resources or infrastructure? Meeting a crisis head-on Enter Kakuma, a village [...]

For many years the catchphrase ‘one laptop per child’ in primary schools appeared to be just an empty promise. On a recurrent basis, there have been initiatives to improve digital literacy among Kenyan children, but the poor infrastructure in many schools and the lack of relevant high-quality content has always been a huge obstacle. [...]

Supporting students from the most unprivileged backgrounds is our mission and that is precisely why we created a-ACADEMY—a digital learning platform for primary school children. So far, we have worked mainly in informal slum schools in Africa that need our support most desperately, making our material available already to more than 15,000 students. Reaching so [...]

Working in the slums of Nairobi is not always an easy task. In the time we spend in slum schools with their teachers, who work tirelessly to educate a whole generation, we get to hear about the hurdles they need to overcome on a daily basis. Education in the slums becomes even trickier when it [...]

At Avallain Foundation, we want to unlock human potential and we believe we can do this through providing comprehensive education that equips students with key 21st century competencies, like Digital Literacy. But, are our best intentions actually doing the job? To find out, we decided to conduct a Digital Literacy Study to understand if students [...]