Challenge 4 Change LTD

Challenge 4 Change LTD is a non-profit organization offering a launchpad for change making. We help children between the age of 12-16 have an impact in their community. They practice core tools such as design thinking and learning skills that will sharpen their competence in their future workplace.

Our goal as an organization is to make children, especially in disadvantaged areas around the world:

1. Better equipped to face a future that's so different from our current reality. 
2. Confident problem solvers with faith in a better future.
3. Engaged, constructive citizens with a sense of ownership towards their community and planet earth as a whole.
4. Tolerant, understanding human beings who can spread love and build a better future.

We aim to do this by training teachers from around the world on becoming wonderful facilitators who can lead skill building sessions and teach design thinking to their students. We have two models. Teachers can either weave the program into their curriculum during the school day or they can lead it as an after school activity.

The model is quite simple. The teachers go through a training program with us. Then, they open a C4C chapter in their school and are automatically connected to a wider network of problem solvers from around the world. Ideas and solutions are openly shared to inspire students from other places.

Many–if not most–fresh graduates in developing countries are lack the necessary skills a young professional needs. Employers complain that employees rely on management to solve problems rather than come up with solutions themselves. 

We decided at C4C to tackle the root cause and make sure we offer an early introduction to problem solving to children (12-16), an age where children start to build their own views of world problems. We believe that by introducing design thinking early on, we influence their mindset to be geared towards designing a solution rather than wait for an answer. 

We have done 4 pilot runs so far, three in the US and one in Egypt over 3 school semesters. The children have changed a lot, their parents have noticed a change in their attitude, their maturity level and their view of problems that have always been around them.

We realized that children, once given a chance to voice their opinions and when given guidance when turning their voice into action, they can do wonders. Their views are not yet contaminated by others' ideas.. they are very creative and we want to capture this creativity and grow it.

We train children to be well equipped and confident problem solvers with faith in a better future. We prepare them to be engaged, constructive citizens with a sense of ownership. Tolerant, understanding human beings who can spread love and build a better future.

Our training program will prepare 60 teachers to facilitate design thinking sessions to children in their schools. The impact is estimated to reach over 1800-3600 students. Teachers in private schools are responsible to volunteer in an underprivileged neighborhood,amplifying the impact further. In the future, we plan to get our teachers to train others as well.

1800-3600 students divided into teams of 3-4 keeping logs of their work, C4C support team following up on their action plans. - 60 teachers implementing the program in their schools

Monitoring and evaluation forms measuring students' progress in how they're using the skills in their communication, activities, etc.. - Students becoming proficient at using the skills taught

Testing the solution each of the student groups come up with. - Solving a challenge

We will use technology to help children around the world communicate about their problem solving endeavors. 

We're not using any novel technology for this, simply building on existing tools such as cloud services to allow for an efficient communication and idea/feedback sharing between different parties.

Our entire program is built on the involvement of people, starting from training the facilitators (school teachers) who deliver the program to making sure we apply the solutions children develop.

In our program, technology is simply a tool to communicate and transfer knowledge.

Any teacher interested in getting the training required will have to apply, we would like to be able to provide grants for teachers to go through the training. The solution is sustainable as students taking part in the program in private schools in the US and international schools in Africa will be paying a fee to support the teachers involved and part of the fees will take care of schools in developing countries.

We are planning on raising funds to support the team financially. We're also planning on charging a fee to students participating in the program in schools which can afford the service so we can sustain the teachers working with us as well as the support team.

Funding is an issue at the moment to be able to pay full time employees. We're at the moment all volunteers and have done pro-bono pilot projects with schools in the US and Egypt.

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We're applying to gain access to other solvers, MIT's resources that can help us grow as an organization. We need professional advisors in the field of education. We would also need to increase our use of technology in our program, we would like to focus on gamification in the future to enhance the educational process and have children become more engaged in the classroom. We'd also like to form new partnerships with organizations with similar goals and reach a wider audience around the world.

The Teachers Institute of Philadelphia (TIP) at Penn (Dr. Alan J. Lee).