COVID-19: Adapt and Thrive, a data-lite, mobile education program that launched this week in South Africa will be scaled across the continent by the United Nations.

Developed in a collaboration between Funzi and Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator, the four-part program takes just a couple of hours to complete and uses only about 8MB of data. The course shares clear and up-to-date information about COVID-19, as well as actions South Africans can take to stay safe and informed.

It addresses the physical, mental, social, and financial impact that coronavirus has on people’s lives, their families, communities, and South African society. The program was created in conjunction with medical specialists, digital product designers and other local learning experts and is designed specifically for users in emerging markets, covering the themes:

• What is COVID-19?
• COVID-19: what can you do?
• How to stay healthy and resilient
• How to maintain your social and financial well-being

Funzi is an award-winning Finnish mobile education provider with a track record of delivering hope through essential information and learning opportunities to people in crises. “In times of crisis, mobile learning has proven to be incredibly impactful,” says Aape Pohjavirta, Founder of Funzi. “We were able to launch the course in only 10 days, giving millions access to timely and critical information. The Funzi approach is unique because of our combination of technology and way of teaching.”

The partnership between Harambee & Funzi is one of many within what has become known as the 3Million 3Weeks initiative that intends to achieve the ambitious goal of providing credible, consistent, compelling and clear COVID-related information to over 3 million young people that ensures they are kept informed, engaged and connected during these difficult times. Other partners in the 3Million 3Weeks initiative include the Solidarity Fund, the National Youth Development Agency, Tshepo 1 Million  and over 160 other youth based organisations and employers.

COVID-19: Adapt and Thrive can be accessed at no cost at funzi.mobi/learn/covid-19-adapt-and-thrive

More information on the 3Million 3Weeks initiative can be found at www.3m3w.co.za/

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Funzi is a mobile service that gives all mobile users access to motivating and useful learning. We empower our learners to develop skills they need to build a better tomorrow with our service’s engaging experience and effective pedagogy. Through our global partnerships with the world’s largest education publisher Pearson and social network Facebook, among others, we aim to solve the greatest challenges in education.

Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator is a not-for-profit social enterprise with extensive experience of building solutions and innovations aimed at solving the youth unemployment challenge in South Africa. We partner with business, government, young people and many other partners who are committed to results that can work at scale. Visit Harambee.co.za to find out more.