How the MLL can Make All the Difference during COVID-19

From our partner CAUSE Canada in Sierra Leone

Schools have been shut down in Sierra Leone due to the pandemic and, as in many countries, students have experienced the same impact: no access to classes, material or support.

CAUSE Canada quickly put together a program to help adolescent girls who have been part of the bursary project that 60 million girls helped finance for a number of years. One of the components of this project was the use of the Mobile Learning Lab (MLL). One of their graduates, Betty, recently wrote to CAUSE about the impact of the bursary and access to their pandemic support program.

Thank you is so simple but powerful. Grateful is one word that expresses my love and gratitude for the bursary program. I am very much grateful for all the support the organization (CAUSE Canada) has given me from the start of my academics until now. Words cannot express how happy and thankful I am.

This organization made me to be called a university student. If not I wouldn’t be a university student by now because my parents can’t afford the fees, rent and food but this program is providing all these for me. I now attend classes without any fear of being asked out for tuition.

Moreover during this pandemic (COVID-19) all schools were closed and students were no longer attending school or going to classes. The Bursary Program deemed it good to support us with learning materials that would keep us busy during the holiday (time off). They gave us tablets that were loaded with learning materials like tutorials, dictionary and more research sites to take home and read with.

Furthermore there are modules that I love so much in class and some that I find very difficult to study and comprehend. But with the tutorials, I can now proudly say that all modules are very easy to understand for me: modules like biostatistics, biochemistry and microbiology. All of them I can now understand. My lecturers are very proud of me in terms of presentations, class participation, etc.

Finally, if not for this program, I would have dropped out of school a long time ago. This program has made it possible for me to not drop out of school but to be entering Year 3 this January.

We thank CAUSE Canada for sharing this wonderful letter with us. We also thank CAUSE for its great initiative in taking the tablets from the MLL and downloading content directly on them so that students could use them safely at home over the past months.

Creative thinking during this most difficult of times changes everything for students around the world!