Location: Kakuma Refugee Complex & Kalobeyei Settlement (Turkana County, Kenya), plus Tanzania & UgandaRole: Program Manager — Education & Community Impact, Smiley Charity Organization
Theory of Change
Goal: To improve foundational literacy, numeracy, and math proficiency among underserved and refugee youth through localised EdTech interventions and library digitisations in high-need refugee environments.
Intervention Pathway: If we co-design community library digitisations and deploy gamified digital learning tools (SmileyTutor) across 30+ sites — specifically targeting 11 sites within the Kakuma refugee complex and Kalobeyei settlement — while actively engaging refugee community coordinators and families under a strict M&E progress-monitoring framework, then refugee students will overcome traditional learning barriers and demonstrate measurable academic improvement.
Situation
Rapid geopolitical displacement, restricted mobility, and resource-scarce environments in Kakuma and Kalobeyei left hundreds of refugee children without reliable access to quality math and literacy education or digital learning spaces.
Task
Direct country-level rollout of SmileyTutor across 30+ digitised community libraries and specifically oversee education programming across 11 sites within the Kakuma refugee complex and Kalobeyei settlement.
Action
Refugee-Camp Programming Execution: Led targeted education programming across 11 sites in Kakuma and Kalobeyei, extending platform access to 400+ refugee learners through customised orientation and peer-support structures.
Data & Quality Assurance: Led virtual coordination and robust M&E quality assurance across programme sites in 11 countries, actively flagging implementation gaps to leadership for data-driven course correction.
Intensive Stakeholder Engagement: Supervised a multi-site team of facilitators and refugee community coordinators, delivering standardised training on foundational literacy, numeracy instruction, and platform operation.
Incentive Ecosystem Management: Managed the SmileyCoin incentive ecosystem within fixed budget allocations, sustaining 3,500+ learners (including refugee youth) and improving tool uptime by 30%.
21%improvement in math proficiency, incl. refugee cohorts
3,500+learners sustained via incentive ecosystem
+38%increase in school & community collaboration
+28%increase in youth participation
Programme Impact, at a Glance
21% improvement in math proficiency across target student populations, including refugee cohorts, following the SmileyTutor rollout.
School & community collaboration
+38%
Youth participation
+28%
Tool uptime
+30%
Result
Drove a 21% improvement in math proficiency across target student populations, including refugee cohorts.
Maintained continuous uptime and engagement for 3,500+ learners through an optimised incentive ecosystem.
Built school and community partnerships that increased collaboration by 38% and youth participation by 28%.
Learnings & Sustainability
Specialised refugee-camp programming in Kakuma and Kalobeyei proves that combining community library digitisations with localised coordinator training bridges the educational divide in displaced contexts more effectively than traditional top-down software distribution.