How was your summer? As we embrace the vibrant energy of September, let's explore what happened at Kabakoo during August.

We journeyed through August accompanied by Boubacar Traoré's blues guitar and voice on his song Les enfants de Pierrette. An emotional and melancholic tune for strength and resilience when the days are cloudy and rainy.

What are we building?

Kabakoo is a community-driven upskilling platform designed to allow young people in West Africa to develop the mindset and the skills needed to improve their life in a context of scarce formal jobs.

☀️ August 2024 Highlights (or downlights?) 🌧️

August brought unprecedented heavy rainfall, causing flooding in several cities and neighborhoods across Mali and the Sahel region. Kabakoo's building was not an exception, giving us firsthand experience of climate change impacts in the Sahel region (some quick images of the scene here). This unplanned "immersive learning" experience highlighted the urgent need for climate adaptation strategies.

Climate change, a real concern among the youth

In July 2023, we conducted a national study among Mali's youth to understand their main concerns and hopes for the future. Among the respondents, 21% expressed concern about climate change, alongside other issues such as insecurity, poverty, and lack of job opportunities.

Furthermore, on a scale of 1 to 5 assessing the level of concern about climate change in the Sahel, 58.3% of young Malians express worry. Of these, 46.6% indicate the highest level of concern, placing themselves at the maximum of the scale. These figures reveal that, despite various pressing issues, climate change is already a significant concern for a substantial portion of the youth.

So, where do you go from here? To be honest, we don’t quite know yet. We are exploring, experimenting, and learning. Since 2020, as you can read here (link), we have been dipping our toes into climate-resilient upskilling, focusing on the construction sector. Our next step is to further integrate climate resilience into our AI-powered upskilling programs. We'd love to hear from you if you have any resources, examples, or best practices to share!

It’s the Identity, Stupid!

Well, probably also the economy, and even more so the climate nowadays. You know the catchphrase.

We recently realized we hadn't shared this write-up on how we harnessed A/B testing to craft and implement a messaging campaign during Bamako.ai. We tested different versions of our message, leveraging various psychological biases: urgency, anchoring, identity, positive storytelling, and tangibility. Interestingly, the message version based on the receiver's identity consistently outperformed all others.

For a comprehensive look at the message content, data sources, and detailed results, check out the full write-up here.

Kabakoo Faces

(With over 34 000 registered learners, each month we spotlight a member of our vibrant community

We're thrilled to share Yossi's inspiring story, which is buzzing on TikTok with 31k views! Yossi's experience resonates with many who've felt stuck in their educational journey. In the video, he reveals that after struggling for 7 years at university to obtain his college diploma, he discovered his true calling as a live streamer through a 6-month training program at Kabakoo.

Through Kabakoo's mindset-oriented upskilling, Yossi transformed from a frustrated student into a fulfilled young man earning a living with his digital skills as a live streamer. This is exactly the kind of change we love to witness.

Teaser: We are updating our Digital Makers Training with sector-specific tracks

We're cooking up something exciting for our next Digital Makers cohort! Set to launch in October, our signature upskilling program will explore applications in specific economic sectors. We are diving deep into three areas : cultural and creative industries, construction, and agrifood business. The program will offer our usual range of digital skills tailored to the use cases of those specific industries, providing our learners with practical, locally relevant and valuable expertise.

We are really enthusiastic about this, and can't wait to share our insights with you as we progress.

Thanks for reading to the end 💜🧡

The Kabakoo Team

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