About us

Building learning capacity to make a positive and lasting impact

Encouraging education through creative teaching and learning

Good quality education is the keystone for personal and professional growth, and contributes without any doubt to a thriving community. Education helps students, young and old, to make more informed and conscious decisions about their future. This allows them to make a confident start or change of direction in their professional life.

That is why we are convinced that the best way to help a community in the long run is to encourage learning and increase learning capacity. Today, we can be frustrated to see how many positive developments in education are filtering through so slowly. That is why, with CLIC Africa, we focus on education and training for school-age children, young and adult students. The goal: to support welfare and growth in African communities through knowledge and skills building in a creative and motivating learning environment.

CLIC Africa therefore stands for Creative Learning in Communities Africa.

For a strong position in the labour market

Students that are deepening their knowledge and learning new skills become more confident and independent. They can significantly improve their chances on the labour market, it gives them stability and also encourages local entrepreneurship. This is the primary focus of our educational hubs through which we endeavour to make a positive and sustainable impact for all people in the local community.

Through educational hubs and mentorships

CLIC Africa’s educational hubs aim to provide high quality learning programmes based on the most pressing learning and skill training needs of our partner communities. Setting up and running these hubs is done in two ways. Either we take the initiative with CLIC Africa ourselves, or we work in partnership with local initiators. These initiators receive support from CLIC Africa in securing financing and materials and resources and in connecting them to a network of mentors.

Our mentor networks will consist of subject specialists, local and foreign volunteers, who, together with our local teachers and staff, will help to enrich existing curricula and develop new ones, on site and via digital connection. Our mentors support the hub to enhance the content, learning resources, and practicalities of existing learning programmes, as well as create and design new ones. They also help the teachers to solve specific technical and pedagogical issues and, in consultation, identify and try to fulfil the needs for further teacher training.

We supply our hubs with creative, up to date learning resources and modern (IT) materials; think of: WiFi routers, laptops and projectors. The installation and day to day running of the hubs is funded through our fundraising and, where possible, we accept voluntary donations from our students and our local learning partners. The latter are organisations, companies and institutions who subscribe their employees to our programme for specific courses that they judge can be beneficial to their overall operations .

Our hubs can take different forms and follow different trajectories; we work with a mobile hub in an initial and test stage and/or where participants are geographically dispersed; as a project progresses and/or there is a clear need for a specific location or larger space, we prefer to give a learning centre a permanent site.

In an ideal situation, we would like to set up and develop our learning centres following four successive phases:

phase 1

Setup of an IT room for classes in Basic Computer Skills i.e. use of email, MS Office applications, use of a search engine etc.

phase 2

Setup of three labs: the digital lab, the makers (or fabrication) lab and the field lab;

In these labs, students can obtain both theoretical and practical knowledge in the fields of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics), often with the help of digital learning resources and ‘hands-on’ tools and materials, preferably procured locally. During fieldwork, students have the opportunity to apply their acquired skills in out-in-the-field projects that benefit the community such as off-the-grid energy projects using solar and hydro energy, new construction techniques, vertical farming, 3D printing of spare and replacement parts, robot applications, process automation, collection and processing of measurements and data and much more.

phase 3

Consolidation of activities in the hub i.e. student feedback, evaluation of local teachers and staff and of mentor collaboration, evaluation of efficient use of funds and income and of the overall sustainability of the hub’s operation.

phase 4

step up to higher-level technical, hands-on training (incl heavier machinery)
higher-level IT development and applications (Industry 4.0)
supporting local entrepreneurs in the community via ‘smart’ entrepreneurship
launch of startups delivering in-house developed ‘CLIC’ products and services by our member-students

In reality, each of these phases will be considered and implemented according to the practical circumstances in which we can work, but always with the aim of maximising the learning capacity and wellbeing of the community.

The first hub in Kisantu has been a reality since the start of 2022: here our local project manager runs a mobile hub that is ‘thriving’ in phases 1-3 thanks to its local partners and where we are ready to develop phase 4 and ‘smart’ entrepreneurship in the next 3 years.

Our team of volunteers

With a proven track record

The founders of CLIC Africa have earned their spurs at various charities and social enterprises. With CLIC Africa they are resolutely putting their shoulders to the wheel for the educational needs in Africa.

During their missions on site, the founders and volunteers work with local communities and are responsible for the support and evaluation of the project. They are tirelessly seeking to further expand learning activities in the hub and to employ modern teaching materials and resources, recruit new teachers and staff, connect with local learning partners, organisations, companies and institutions, and explore locations for new hubs. In Belgium they are responsible for fundraising and setting up supportive mentorships for the local teachers.