We know today’s education systems aren't working for every child. By 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will be home to 1 in 3 of the world’s children, yet right now, 9 in 10 of them aren’t learning to read by age 10.
In the last two decades, Africa has achieved the fastest increase in primary school enrolment, completion, and gender parity of any region in history — all while educating the largest generation of children the world has ever seen, and doing so under some of the toughest conditions globally. Now, history must be made again, to improve quality and inclusion, fast and at scale, during a demographic boom not set to peak until 2075.
Despite decades of investment, learning outcomes remain stubbornly low — especially in rural and marginalised communities. In northern Ghana, over 500,000 children are out of school, as few as 2% of grade 2 pupils can read fluently, and 73% can’t answer a simple subtraction question like 19 – 6. We believe this is no coincidence, when some of the most invested stakeholders — families and communities — are routinely under-engaged.
Powerhouse Communities change this. They unlock the transformative power of parents and communities to help more children learn, enrich learning to be rooted and relevant to local contexts, and reach children excluded by social barriers that schools alone can’t overcome. Equipped with the means, motive and opportunity, communities don’t just make change happen — they sustain it.
Powerhouse Communities are a proven approach to supporting parents, schools, and entire communities to become champions of children’s learning. They equip families with the tools they need to support education at home, strengthen schools to work in effective partnership with parents, and mobilise communities to take ownership of improving and sustaining quality education. Through parent learning groups, school–community engagement strategies, community-managed funds, and the leadership of local champions, this innovation drives cultural shifts and action that put learning at the heart of community life. Specifically, our activities build means, motive and opportunity:
• Means: equipping families with knowledge, skills and practical tools to prioritise and support education at home and in school — including training in livelihoods, money management, home learning and volunteer roles.
• Motive: collaborating with local leaders and influencers to deliver multimedia social behaviour change activities including events, participatory learning, and radio.
• Opportunity: space and support to build mutually beneficial partnerships and collaboration between communities and education providers for increased capacity and accountability.
From humble beginnings in the village of Sirigu, AfriKids’ work has spread to 29 districts of northern Ghana, supporting hundreds of communities to lead change for children. In the past two years, 60 more Powerhouse Communities have been activated, reaching over 114,000 people and driving locally-led progress in education. In 2024, we supported 44,000 children and saw literacy and numeracy improve by 65% and 78% respectively in key areas, with increased attendance and inclusion of under-represented groups, including children with disabilities and marginalised minority ethnic groups.
This builds on nearly 25 years of community-led programming and is now shaping bold plans for the next phase. We're refining the model to focus on the most effective, lowest-cost approaches that deliver meaningful and lasting gains in children’s learning, and preparing to support significantly more communities in the years ahead.
In today’s changing global context, solving the learning crisis and ensuring no child is left behind will require coordinated effort that brings all stakeholders to the table — respecting, recognising and resourcing their unique capacity to drive change. We’ll deepen our commitment to shifting power to communities, strengthen research and evidence, and increase collaboration and advocacy to expand reach and impact. We aim to support thousands more people to rise up and unlock the power of communities — giving every child the best chance to learn today and lead tomorrow.
Our work has continuously evolved since AfriKids was founded to support local ideas in northern Ghana over 20 years ago. Still 100% designed and delivered by local people, for local people, we have reflected on learning and made improvements with every phase of our work on education and child rights.
We’ve strengthened our monitoring and learning systems to better capture changes that matter most to the people affected — from shifts in attitudes and behaviours to increased confidence, inclusion and agency. As we’ve expanded into more remote areas, we’ve adapted to different terrains, local structures and challenges — from climate shocks and rising living costs to localised conflict.
Our early microfinance programme has evolved to include lighter-touch, community-owned savings models that increase livelihood security and women’s influence in household decision-making. Skills training has become more locally relevant too — from soapmaking during COVID to beekeeping and climate-smart agriculture.
In education, we’ve used low-cost, locally sourced materials in KG classrooms and trained more community volunteers to support learning — including catch-up and accelerated classes for out-of-school children. We’ve grown more inclusive of children often left behind, and created more space for youth voices. These changes reflect our core belief: progress comes from listening, learning and adapting — always with communities in the lead.
In our next phase, we will be producing open-source materials and guidance to help spread this simple but high-impact model far and wide. In the meantime, we work with many partners and are always open to hearing from others who may want to learn from our approach or collaborate.
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