Aissata Lamarana Bah, a co-founder and staff member of Jeune Espoir (JE), completed an internship at Digital Promise, a DC-based international organization, between April and July 2023 under IREX’s Community Engagement Exchange program (CEE). 

The CEE is funded by the US government and implemented by IREX (The International Research and Exchange Board). The CEE team received over 6k applicants but selected only 139 to participate in the program in 2023. The program pre-selection process includes filling out an application form with questions about what candidates do to serve their communities and how the CEE would help them improve their work. Once pre-selected, participants are asked to submit additional essays regarding their commitment to community engagement, a video answering an interview question, and an official Duolingo test score for those whose first language is not English. 

Aissata became a CEE finalist for many reasons, including but not limited to her commitment to serving the youth of her community through JE. As part of her work for the organization, she develops digital learning content and teaches a popular conversational English course that equips participants with interpersonal skills such as equity, inclusivity, empathy, etc. All the Jeune Espoir team perceives Aissata’s participation in the CEE  as an honor, a great indicator of the effectiveness and importance of the organization's work. 

Additionally, Aissata’s participation in the CEE is changing the course of JE’s Powerful Blended Learning program, previously called Academic Support. Under this program, JE has spent the last seven years developing digital formats of the Guinean high school key math and science courses and making them available to students in an app. While over 1000 students have benefited from this digital content, the fact that most Guinean teachers are not digitally literate stands in the way of broad participation in digital learning. This is where Aissata’s CEE internship at Digital Promise comes into play. During her time at Digital Promise, with the support of her mentor, Aissata helped develop a course to initiate teachers in a low-tech environment to Powerful Blended Learning. 

In December 2023, Digital Promise and JE’s team successfully piloted the PBL course that Aissata had a hand developing. This pilot project profoundly impacted the twenty educators from Dalaba who participated in the training, instilling new confidence in their teaching methods. Click here to learn more about this pilot project.

In the upcoming fiscal year, JE plans to continue supporting each of these teachers, monitoring their progress, and helping them assemble their PBL toolboxes. Building on the pilot project's success, JE aims to extend the PBL training and resources to 40 more teachers in Dalaba and its surrounding cities. By the end of the fiscal year, JE would have empowered 60 teachers to run BPL classes effectively, marking a significant step forward in the organization’s mission to enhance education in Guinea.