Sierra Leone Living Lab
Unlocking the digital divide through community-led education and technology.
Overview
The Sierra Leone Living Lab is AIBIA’s longest-running project and the foundation of our global work. For over fifteen years, we have collaborated with communities, schools, and youth in low-income neighborhoods to expand access to ICT, strengthen local capacities, and experiment with new forms of education and development.
What began as a small initiative to “unlock the digital divide” has grown into a multi-layered ecosystem of:
community-based computer labs,
ICT literacy programs for teachers, girls, and young people,
public trainings and open courses,
and partnerships with schools and educational authorities in regions such as Bombali District.
The Lab’s guiding question is: how can technology and education serve local communities first—rather than reproducing dependency, exclusion, or extractive development?
Context & History
Sierra Leone’s education system has made strong commitments to ICT, but schools continue to face a lack of equipment, connectivity, and training. In this context, AIBIA began working directly with communities and schools to:
establish computer labs in under-resourced areas,
provide practical ICT training for teachers and students,
and create long-term, place-based partnerships rather than short project cycles.
Over time, the work expanded from basic computer literacy to a broader experiment in critical, community-rooted digital education. The Lab now serves as:
a local hub for ICT skills and education,
a training platform for teachers and school staff,
and a field site for international collaborations linking Sierra Leone with partners in Europe and beyond.
What We Do
1. ICT Literacy for All
We organize ICT trainings for:
Teachers and school staff – strengthening their capacity to integrate ICT into everyday teaching and to meet new national ICT requirements.
Young people and students – from basic computer use to more advanced applications, depending on local needs.
The wider public – open training sessions and community courses that treat ICT as a shared resource, not a private privilege.
Our goal is not only to teach technical skills, but to democratize access to digital tools so that communities can produce, not just consume, knowledge.
2. Community-Based Computer Labs
The Living Lab supports the creation and maintenance of ICT centers that are:
physically embedded in schools or community spaces,
staffed and co-managed by local teams,
and open to both formal education and non-formal community use.
These labs are designed as commons: shared infrastructures that the community can shape over time.
3. Partnerships with Schools & Authorities
AIBIA works with:
primary and secondary schools (e.g., in Bombali District),
teacher training institutions,
and local education authorities and ministries,
to align our grassroots work with broader educational goals in Sierra Leone, while also pushing for more inclusive, community-centered approaches.
A Living Laboratory for Alternative Education
The Sierra Leone Lab is not just a service provider—it is a living experiment in:
how to design ICT and education projects that are co-owned by communities,
how to build non-extractive partnerships between Global South and North institutions,
and how to connect local struggles for educational justice with global debates on democracy, autonomy, and decolonization.
The Lab is integrated into AIBIA’s wider work on critical reimaginative theory and prefigurative democracy, and will host:
field schools and research stays for international students and scholars,
collaborative projects linked to SDG 4 (Quality Education) and related goals,
and South–North knowledge exchange around ICT, pedagogy, and grassroots development.
Education, Field Schools & Research (Future-Facing)
As AIBIA’s global network develops, the Sierra Leone Living Lab will increasingly serve as:
a site for immersive field schools where students work alongside local teachers, youth, and organizers;
a partner in DAAD / Erasmus+ / SDG-oriented programs, focusing on education, digital inclusion, and community empowerment;
a research node for scholars interested in ICT, decolonial education, and grassroots democracy.
These activities will always be grounded in a simple principle: visitors must contribute to local priorities and leave behind tools that remain useful after they go home.
News & Updates
Latest from the Sierra Leone Living Lab
Here we share ongoing stories from the ground: new ICT trainings, teacher workshops, collaborations with schools, equipment donations, and reflections from our local team and visiting students. This section will be updated regularly with photos, reports, and short blog posts from the Lab.
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