Beyond the classroom: Empowering local communities to champion their children’s education
After 25 years of working alongside communities in Ghana, AfriKids is stepping into a bold new chapter. Thanks to support from the Kent Family Foundation and from across the AfriKids community, the charity is preparing to launch Rise Up, a focused and scalable model that will look beyond the classroom, at the power that lies in a child’s most invested stakeholder – their parents and caregivers
The challenge is urgent. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, 9 in 10 children cannot read by age 10, and in Ghana, children spend more years in school than anywhere in Africa yet gain the equivalent of just six years of learning. With global education budgets shrinking, simply building more classrooms is not enough. Instead of asking, “how can we build more classrooms?”, AfriKids is asking, “how can we build the kind of community that fills those classrooms and supports their children to learn?”
Launching as a pilot in early 2026, Rise Up will place parents, caregivers and local leaders firmly in the driving seat, strengthening belief in education, increasing learning time at home and in school, and building collective responsibility for children’s success. AfriKids will be testing what truly activates communities, and how change can be sustained and scaled and aims to improve learning outcomes for more than 3,000 children.
Together, through the power of education, we are tackling the root causes of poverty and enabling communities to lead lasting change for their children’s futures.
