At the very young age of less than one year old, a violent civil war broke out in my home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo. As a result, my family was forced to flee. And as luck would have it, we found safety in Kyangwali refugee camp, located in western Uganda, where I grew up from and have learned to call home for the past 24 years.
Every morning, my two parents would wake up at 5am and leave for the fields where they went to cultivate our small garden, to plant maize and beans to feed the family. And every evening when they came back home, they would end the night in the same way. Usually, they would gather me and my siblings and would give us a pep talk on how much they desired for us to go to school and be educated.
Surprisingly, none of my parents actually had gone to school. But to them, education meant securing a well-paying job at some point in the future. And with this, we [could] afford the three meals a day. We perhaps could build a nice-looking house for our family or even decide to take our family from the refugee camp to the city.
And so when I started going to school, I took this [to] heart and I took school seriously. Even though I was just a little kid, I managed to wake myself out of bed, take all three goats to graze and be back on time to dress up and go to school.
Classes in the refugee camp can be overcrowded. I was one of the nearly 200 students who sat in a single classroom as I tried to focus and learn. But besides the problem of overcrowded classrooms, we also had an issue whereby most of our learning was characterized by rote memorization. On a typical day, we showed up in a classroom, copied down notes that teachers gave us and were expected to go back home [and] cram these in preparation for exams. And if I can be honest with you, I did not enjoy this. We barely interacted with our teachers and even amongst ourselves. And even though as serious students, most of the time, school seemed to be very boring.
However, as I was growing up and as I took on the routine of going to school in the morning and then coming back to my family in the evening, there seemed to be one thing and one thing only, that truly held my attention, and that was the idea of playing games. And I most loved playing the game of football. Now I will start off by addressing the biggest elephant in the room. I know most of you love American football, but actually that's not the game I'm talking about. I’m five foot three, and given my size, I truly can't play American football. So I’m actually talking about football, where we use our feet, and that’s soccer.
I also loved playing the cards of spades. And most of the time after school I would come to my house, and I would be holding a deck of cards. And every time my parents saw me shuffling these cards, they would be paranoid, thinking I'd started gambling. But I wasn't. And perhaps because I then didn't have money to do so.
No wonder, while in high school in 2016, the idea of gamification became the best solution I thought about I could use to be able to address the problem in the refugee camp. And since then, I've been on a quest to make education more accessible and more fun and engaging for children within Kyangwali refugee camp through the use of board games. And if you don't mind, I'm going to share with you how it all happened.
One year before, in 2015, I was lucky and got an opportunity to go and study at African Leadership Academy, located in Johannesburg, South Africa. And here I was introduced to the idea of entrepreneurship for the first time. And my amazing teachers taught me that entrepreneurs were simply problem solvers. And I immediately knew that I wanted to work on an education problem. The first idea I thought: I could build a primary school. More children would access learning spaces, teachers would not have the problem of overcrowded classrooms. But the problem was I was 19 years old, didn’t have the money, didn't have the skills of what it took to build a primary school.
The second idea I thought: I could advocate for a well-equipped library. With this, we would have enough textbooks in the library, and children would have enough reading materials. They would do it at school in performing in the national exams. However, I had one issue with the library. You see, food can be scarce in the refugee camp, and several times when I showed up at school, I personally remembered every time I entered in the library, all I could think about was food. More than anything, I needed a solution that was cheap, a solution that was credible, and something that would be very exciting to the children. Something that somehow would help these children forget about their hunger and then engage with running. But also something that would help teachers have control on overcrowded classrooms. But most importantly, help children engage with algebra, with the science they were learning, and have fun every single day they came to school.
And so even though I had never taken drawing classes, I picked up a pencil and got some courage to start making sketches of what would be my first board game. I also generated a number of trivia questions and then called up my former primary school teacher in Kyangwali refugee camp. And I asked if I could visit my primary school once again. He was generous, and he said yes. When I showed up at my former primary school, the kids were excited, and most of them jumped out of their seats when I told them what I held in my hands was a board game. Surprisingly, none of them actually knew even how the game was played. But heading towards the board game, they were thrilled. Working with the teachers and the school administration, they give me about one hour to test out the game for the next couple weeks. And the game was a huge success. So much so, that the next morning my mom woke me out of bed telling me that there was a group of children wearing my school uniform, looking for me. I was still confused because it was about 6am in the morning. But I woke up out of my bed, still in my night dress actually, and then opened the door. There was about six children, and when I looked at them, there were about two faces that I could recognize. There was James and Patrick, two of the children I had worked with the previous day. And with the most innocent faces that I have ever seen, they were like, “Could you come and join us at school, and then we play the game before school starts?”
And looking at their faces, there was no way I was going to say no. I said, "I'll dress up and meet you over by school."
And this group of amazing children became my early testers. We would play the game in the morning, and then in the afternoon, as they waited for their afternoon shift. And today, the game has evolved into what my team and I at My Home Stars, a nonprofit we are running in Uganda, have called the 5 STA-Z educational board game. And here is how the 5 STA-Z education board works.
At the beginning, a classroom divides itself into groups of five children. And these children begin interacting with one another on questions and content we've developed in partnership with a group of 16 teachers. All this content is a reflection of the actual content covered in the Ugandan educational curriculum of mathematics, English, science and social studies. And as they interact, they get to earn points for every trivia question they get right. And they use these points to advance around the star-shaped board with a goal of being the first one to enter the middle and take on the big yellow star, which usually gets children very excited.
My team and I also have worked together to incorporate game mechanics such as chance and jeopardy, where children actually can earn extra points when they collaborate and help each other with difficult trivia questions. This has been intended to make sure that children actually are learning the components of communication and working together in teams. But also it makes learning become more child-centered. And actually, teachers can focus on groups of children that are struggling most, a model that we are finding to be very helpful in communities such as refugee camps, where most of the time we don't have enough teachers.
And there's one particular reason as to why my team and I decided to call the game the 5 STA-Z. And it's simply the conviction that no matter where you're from and the current existing circumstances, we can all reach for the stars.
And like Neil deGrasse Tyson would put it, not only do we live among the stars, the stars themselves live within us. And that includes children from refugee camps.
And as children also start playing the game, we encourage them not to use their actual names, but actually to take on the characters of the five brightest stars in the galaxy. And that’s Canopus, Rigel, Arcturus, Vega and Sirius. And also, when we hand them the board game, we remind them that they are already stars who are interacting with one another to help each other just shine a little bit brighter.
And perhaps our biggest impact was realized in 2020 and 2021. Like most of you remember, these are the two years when COVID-19 pandemic decided to visit us. And during this time, classes in the refugee camp closed, and children were sent home with no way of accessing learning resources. My team and I took on the challenge to make learning happen within homes, and we produced about 1,000 game packages that we gave to teachers and community leaders. And with this, we’re able to help about 5,000 children to access home learning in the most fun and engaging way through the use of board games.
Today, we are working with five schools in Kyangwali refugee camp where we’ve actually been able to work with school administration to make the 5 STA-Z part of the learning schedules. In the morning, children spend the morning time learning the normal classes they're supposed to take in the curriculum and then spend about one hour in the afternoon to put what they've learned in the morning into practice.
Beyond being a game that is helping children master the curriculum content and do well in the national exam, my team and I are committed to continue building the 5 STA-Z into a learning resource that will continue to put a smile on these children's faces, every single day they come to class and a game that can continue to inspire them into what is possible for them in the future. And also, we are committed to continue building this game into a game that we shall be able to make available to other children in other refugee camps across Uganda and other countries across the African continent.
In the past one year, about 100 million people across the world have been displaced, and many of these are the result of a civil war. From Kyangwali refugee camp in western Uganda to New York City and standing in front of you today and engaging with you is a big, big, big privilege. And the only reason I'm able to do so and stand in front of you, is because I've been given an opportunity to go to school. And while board games such as the 5 STA-Z will not be able to solve some of the world's complex problems of the 21st century, like refugee crisis and displacement, I strongly believe that you and I that are here today, that happen to be a little bit privileged, bear the responsibility to continue building platforms and systems that will help refugee children imagine a better future for themselves, their families and their communities.
Thank you.
(Applause)
