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Ubongo

Ubongo is a pan-African non-profit that creates fun, engaging educational content that is localised and culturally relevant. Ubongo’s content is informed by research and designed to improve children’s school readiness and learning outcomes. Children and their families across Africa access Ubongo's content through TV, radio and online platforms. In 2025, the organisation reached more than 50 million children across Sub-Saharan Africa. 

 

ubongo.org | Partner since 2022

Challenge

Millions of children in Sub-Saharan Africa start primary school without the basic skills they need to learn and succeed. While access to school is often seen as the main challenge, being in a classroom does not always mean a child is actually learning. Many children attend school but remain disengaged and fall behind. Solutions that rely heavily on building infrastructure can take years to reach scale, and this is especially true for children in low-income and rural areas. Large class sizes, limited teacher time and different learning levels mean that some children progress while others fall further behind, widening the gap over time.

Response

Ubongo produces and distributes culturally relevant Edutainment content designed to improve children’s school readiness and learning outcomes at different ages. This content is delivered through TV, radio and digital platforms, reaching children wherever they are. Ubongo’s content supports children across their learning journey, from Akili and Me for ages 3–6, which builds pre-literacy, numeracy and school readiness skills, to Nuzo and Namia for ages 6–9, which strengthens reading, listening and cultural awareness, and Ubongo Kids for ages 7–14, which develops STEM and life skills. 

 

The majority of Ubongo's content is produced in its own animation studio in Dar-es-Salaam by a multilingual team of writers, animators, musicians and producers. Over 50 million children across Sub-Saharan Africa engage with Ubongo content via TV, radio or mobile phone in 14 languages. 

Key numbers

24%

improvement in numeracy and 13% in literacy language skills by children who regularly watch Ubongo's shows