Sthe Shabangu, Lead: Public Relations, Public Affairs and Corporate Citizenship, Samsung Africa Office, recently, shared insight on Samsung Corporate Social Responsibility in Africa especially Smart School Initiative in Nigeria with chike Onwuegbuchi.
Samsung Smart School initiative
Samsung’s smart schools equip and train teachers to use the latest ICT solutions. These range from tablets to laptops, desktops, and an e-board and WiFi printer. The goal at the end of the day is to help these teachers to develop more interactive lessons through highly engaging digital content.
Realizing the Objectives of this Initiative
To date, Samsung has trained about 192 teachers across its five different smart schools in Nigeria. This is a powerful statistic indeed, because it means that each of those 192 teachers now has the ability to change the course of many young Nigerians lives. We are, in essence, creating a ripple effect.
Why Educational Sector?
Impacting education in Africa is very important to Samsung because we believe that education is the single most powerful weapon we have when it comes to eradicating poverty and inequality.
It’s no secret that technology has an important role to play in helping to address many of the major challenges facing education in Africa. Samsung has always excelled at providing innovative technology solutions – and we wanted to harness that capability to make a genuine difference in the education space.
In helping to provide young learners with a good education, we believe we are helping to shape a better future society.
Extending this Capacity Building to Graduates Seeking to be Entrepreneurs
Samsung already has such initiatives in place in the form of its Engineering Academies. These Academies aim to create a pool of technically-skilled graduates who are either eligible for employment or are able to start their own businesses.
These new graduates are trained by Samsung professionals to become employees in repair centres, and assembly lines, or to become independent entrepreneurs. Some of Samsung’s service partners also help employ these graduates.
To better equip them for the future as entrepreneurs or as part of a skilled workforce, graduates are also provided with tool boxes in line with their specialized trade area.
Evaluating the Success of your CSR initiatives in Africa
Samsung measures the success of its CSR initiatives in Africa as it measures all success – through the impact which it has on the lives of those these projects touch.
A great example is our Engineering Academies in Lagos and Ekiti which have trained over 800 young minds.
These Academies have had a massive impact on the individuals who pass through them, individuals like Christie Bakare who was told that ladies aren’t well-suited to disassembling appliances.
Scepticism was just one of a number of obstacles she faced. Her father was determined to see his children become top achievers, but with a family of five to care for, it was often a struggle to make ends meet.
She was, however, determined to become a female engineer and received a significant break when she was invited to attend the Samsung Engineering Academy.
Today Christie is a top technician at Samsung.
Is Samsung Smart School Initiative Implemented only in Nigeria?
The smart school initiative has been implemented in several different countries around Africa such as South Africa, Ghana and Senegal. For example, in Ghana in the Bole region and Eguafu District, we launched a smart school in 2016 in order to provide teachers with basic literacy skills.
In each country, the approach of the smart school remains the same – our goal is to work with global governments and organisations to provide classrooms in underserved communities around Africa – and the world - with technologies and products, so that more students may enjoy the full benefits of a quality digital education.
