Travelling bus fights digital illiteracy in Liberia

Ganta, Nimba County – In Nimba County, a yellow bus is travelling from school to school to teach students how to use computers.

The idea is the brainchild of Jeremiah Lloyd Cooper, a 36-year-old information and telecommunications technician.

The project began last November and so far the founder claims it has reached 1,000 students.

“I graduated from high school actually with no basic computer basis, knowledge. I didn’t even know how to power on a computer, but I went on to choose to study information technology at University level,” he said.

“And I was humiliated the first day that I got into the computer lab; my finger got frozen on the keyboard. I didn’t know how to type and it was humiliating, you know, I experienced. So ever since then, my dream has been to be able to extend computer literacy to children graduating from high school”, said Jeremiah Lloyd Cooper, founder of the mobile computer lab.

The project is funded by the United Nations Development Fund, UNDP, through Jeremiah’s start-up “New Breed Tech Hub”.

The objective is to reach not just schoolchildren but also women.

“For each time we reach this new community, the momentum is high. Students are eager, they want to learn and they even wish for more of our mobile computer lab reaching them frequently, let’s just say frequently”, admits computer trainer, Martin B. Payedoe.

“It’s a computer teaching organization that has come to enlighten our minds on computer knowledge. They’re helping us to learn about the computer and how to do our works fast on computer”, said student Allen M. Koleh Jr.

According to the World Bank, Liberia is one of the least developed countries in the world, and is also lagging behind in terms of Internet: only 26% of its population used it in 2020, compared to 70% in South Africa or 90% in Australia.