The following report is from Sam Burton, Yale College Class of 2020, who is in Nairobi working with Bridge International Academies, a social enterprise that focuses on providing underprivileged students with access to suitable education. Bridge has a network of over 300 affordable private schools throughout Kenya to support low-income families, and has expanded to Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda, and India.
“Kenya and Bridge have been incredible! I am working with the Quality Assurance and Measurement & Evaluation departments to make Bridge’s audits easier to use and more efficient, so that Quality Assurance associates can better help students and so that the data they collect can be more reliable and usable.
Work has been so interesting and inspiring. The project they gave me involves programming, which is new for me, and also gives me the opportunity to come up with my own insights and ideas that I will eventually incorporate into my project. I have been in meetings with the heads of departments (operations, IT, schools, customer care, etc.) and got to learn all about the different facets of Bridge. I’m learning how to use the software SurveyToGo, which will be crucial to my project. I got to visit two academies with a QA Associate to watch how the Attendance audit and Key Observation audit—the two audits I am tasked to improve—actually work. Visiting the schools was so incredible. I was able to play with the students during recess and sit in on some of their classes. We work long hours, from about 9am to 6pm, but since everyone here (including me) is so passionate about the students and about education, it doesn’t feel like a long day at all.”