Covid19 Response
TIC Network’s Response To The Corona Virus
COVID-19 is part of a group of coronaviruses, which is a large family of viruses that may cause illness in humans and animals. The world has previously witnessed other strains of coronavirus, such as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The novel coronavirus, called COVID-19, surfaced in December 2019. More than 17 million cases of COVID-19 have been recorded globally since then.
The first case of COVID-19 in Nigeria was recorded on the 10th of March 2020. Due to rising numbers and in a bid to contain the virus, the Federal Ministry of Education ordered the closure of tertiary institutions, as well as secondary and primary schools nationwide effective from the 23 rd of March. The education of Nigeria’s 46 million students was severely disrupted as a result of these restrictions.
The World Bank reported that the closure of educational institutions might aggravate an already existent learning crisis. 5 According to assessments by the SDG Education 2030 Steering Committee, current methodologies in education are insufficient in equipping youth with the skills needed to meet the SDG targets. Moreover, school closures are expected to exacerbate the problem and have both short and long-term impacts: in the short term, students would face losses in learning, but over the long term, reduced economic opportunities.
HOW ARE WE DOING: THE TRANSITION TO ONLINE EDUCATION
SOFTWARE FOR OUR ONLINE CLASS
In the wake of school closures, we at TICN decided to transition to online learning to ensure the continuity of our services to our students.
We use Zoom to deliver our sessions. Acknowledging that some of the more sophisticated software might need time to explain its installation and usage, some of our workshop facilitators ensured an extra ‘launch-day’ before the event to familiarise our students with the software and its functions.
ABOUT OUR MENTORSHIP SESSIONS
TICN’s mentorship sessions are run by mentors who have years of experience in their field. We also have a team of administrative staff and volunteers from across the world to aid our mentors and speakers to seamlessly deliver their sessions. To inspire our students, we also have the privilege of hosting renowned speakers from outside Nigeria, who converse with us about their vision of skill-based education for all students.
The Innovative Child Network thanks students, parents, mentors, and volunteers for trusting us with the education of the youth. The success of our response to COVID-19, and ensuring the continuity of our services online would not have been possible without the cooperation and support of our key stakeholders.
TICN thanks its sponsors, stakeholders, partners and friends, and looks forward to a continuing, fruitful association. Despite the challenges posed by COVID-19, we look forward to not only helping our youth gain higher wages and ensure their higher productivity but also working towards a reduction in social inequalities in the long run. Together, we can ensure skill-based education for every child.
Weekly Mentorship Sessions
Our mission is to ensure continuity of educational services such that every child has access to the skills they need for their future professions. Our weekly mentorship sessions, led by experienced mentors, aim to provide skills such as web development, public speaking and writing. The classes run for a period of twelve weeks, with each mentor dedicating between 1 – 2 hours per session. Our sessions are aimed to help our students develop in a holistic manner, such that they are able to become future leaders and contribute to sustainable development.
WHAT WE ARE DOING: TICNetwork’s RESPONSE
Virtual Celebration Of 1 Child 1 Book On Children’s Day
Over the course of our 1 Child 1 Book Campaign, we collected and donated 278 books and N77,000 in cash donations.
To celebrate this success, we held an online essay competition, with cash prizes for the top three winners. It gave us immense pleasure to have 7 speakers, and over 600 viewers from 7 different countries participate in our virtual celebration on Children’s Day.
TiC Kids: Session With Mmokutimaabasi
To make our students ready for the workplace, we had a TiC Kids session with Mmokutimaabasi on the 26 th of June. Our students were taught Scratch programming, and created and shared their Scratch projects online.
TiCN Chat Session: With Prince Gideon Olanrewaju
On the 8th of August, TiCN hosted Prince Gideon Olanrewaju, Chairperson of the International Youth Coalition for Education, and Founder/CEO of Aid for Rural Education Access Initiative (AREAi) for a chat session moderated by Blessing Akpan, Founder/Education Director of TiCN.
Gideon spoke to our students about the journey and challenges of becoming a youth leader. In this interactive session, he outlined the skills needed to solve the challenges currently faced by the global community. He spoke of the importance of soft skills such as critical thinking, innovation, and interpersonal skills, as well as of hard skills such as technical competence. It was a motivating session as he interacted with our students on how to find their purpose in life, and contribute meaningfully to the SDGs.
TiC Kids: Session With Caleb Areeveso
We believe in empowering our youth, such that they, in turn, create leaders. Our approach is best exemplified by our TiC Kids sessions, where former TiC students take on the role of mentors for other students. Caleb is a front end developer, proficient in HTML, CSS and Javascript, and made the mentorship session on the 3 rd of July both informative and fun for our students.
TICN Webinars: Internet Security With Barbara Aboagye
With our transition to online education, it is important to equip our students with the knowledge of how to keep themselves safe while using the Internet. Barbara Aboagye facilitated our session on the 24th of July on Internet Security for children between 5 to 17 years of age. Miss Aboagye is a Master’s student in Civil Engineering at Ecole Centrale in Nantes, France. She is a passionate STEM advocate and is the co-founder of the Centre for Financial Literacy, Africa.
3D Animation Trainings
We had two sessions of 3-day animation training, the first from the 12 th to the 14 th of June, and the second from 10 th to the 13 th of July. Betty Nwachukwu facilitated both the workshops. These were aimed not only at skilling our students, but also unleashing their creative potential. Miss Nwachukwu taught our students storyboarding, creating characters and customizing them according to the storyline they developed. In totality, 43 of our students aged between 6-15 were trained over the course of these two workshops.