Sawubona Cultural and Educational Platform

The Black population faces its systemic exclusion, often violent, which determines the inequality in access to education. Despite all the struggle for race equality, colonial thought is still present and, unfortunately, “continues to run within social relations, power structures, social division of labor, production knowledge and identities”. It is not only between federal power, laws, capital, the police, but also over broad instruments of social and cultural control, such as the educational system, forms of mass communication, literary production, and forms of language, even more evident in the labor market. Official data show that Black people form the portion with the worst employment and income conditions in Brazil, for example. With the COVID-19 pandemic, were the ones who suffered most from the effects of the crisis. 

A software platform that offers high-quality decolonial and Afrocentric education to students around the world. Afrocentricity condemns ethnocentric valorization at the expense of the degradation of the perspectives of other groups. Students will be educated from the perspective of knowledge of African history, current societies, and their possibilities, enabling adequate identity formation of Black children before themselves and before society. 

The platform will offer online courses from the perspective of decolonial and Afrocentricity, a museum and will produce short animated videos related to children oral poetry from Africa and its diaspora. The internet use will expand the reaching of Afro-centered work, in addition to reducing borders and shortening distances, forming a rich network around education.

This solution will offer quality education, expanding access and empowering Black children and their families, who faces inequality in access to education, enabling adequate identity formation of Black people before themselves and before society. 

Thus, everyone that wants will have the opportunity to learn about African traditions and achievements, which will give specifically to Black people, the chance to know who they are and what model of society they want to help build. This knowledge will give them the possibility to reach their full potential, as professionals and individuals capable of serving the growth of the communities where they are inserted.

Solutions will be offered to bridge the educational gap that existed prior to the COVID-19 aiming at a better education than the pre-existing education which is offered. 

Our platform will serve as a reference for institutions and teachers who want to improve their curricula and knowledge from a decolonial and Afrocentric perspective.

As a Black woman, born in a poor community in the south of Brazil and with an unlikely trajectory within that society, I have a vast knowledge about the difficulties faced in a society structured in racism, sexism and lack of opportunity. This is similar when you look to the others co-founders.

I have seen how racism determines the loss of life and the illness of the Black population, which makes fighting against it synonymous with fighting for health. I am mother of two beautiful black girls that that are my biggest inspiration.The solution I propose came from what I seek to offer at home as a mother to my daughters and the need to share with other parents who, like me, want their children to grow up receiving a good education, comfortable in being educated sharing and learning history and culture of all races, including their own, have their self-esteem cared for and valued, developing
whole, healthy women and men. True leaders, proud of who they are.

I am involved in several initiatives that fight for Racial Equity within my community, as well as a research group on Black Population Health linked to the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), one of the best universities in Brazil, where I graduated and got my master's degree.

Sawubona is applying to Solve because we believe in partnership as a strong tool to growth and scale our solution. Its CEO and co-founder have already participated in some MIT Hackathons and established a valuable network.

Expanding the Sawubona startup's network will give us strength. This is a unique opportunity to establish valuable partnerships and increase our visibility.

Among the initiatives related to online education, we find Edtechs that intend to offer classes at low cost or even increase literacy, with initiatives and powerful alternatives that can be applied to our solution for people who do not have access to the internet, in addition to the excellent Afrocentric references. We can find African museums all over the world and some animated videos with African nursery rhymes for children. In our project we will innovate by promoting the integration of solutions, partnerships and providing education from an Afrocentric perspective for all. In reference to animated videos, we intend to innovate by making an Afro-diasporic reading and disseminating this knowledge.

Over the next year we intend to raise funds to release our MVP, and hire full time staff.

Over the next five years, we hope grow and scale our solution. We plan on doing this by raising funds, establishing strong local, national and worldwide partnerships, growing our network and public that we will serve. 

We believe that education is a strong tool for success and to end inequalities. Sawubona intends to use some performance indicators to measure progress toward impact goals that includes the number of students reached, teachers engaged, videos developed, expositions developed, and audience reached.

Students around the world are exposed to colonized curricula that provide distorted information and sustain inequalities, hierarchize cultures, contribute to epistemic genocide, enhancing the low self-esteem of the Black population that does not receive adequate stimuli to reach their full potential. Sawubona and its solutions fill this gap by providing accurate information, stimulating critical thinking and enabling an adequate view of Black people before themselves and societies. These tools can be used by students, families, politicians and educators to inspire a new perception of the world and the problems we face, inspiring this generation and the next generations to change the world and reduce inequalities.

Beyond the website we intend to use apps, SMS technology especially for places were internet is not available, and virtual reality for our museum.

The core of our solution is diversity since we believe that a multicultural startup, with different social backgrounds will make this solution stronger. We will activaly promote workers selections among underrepresented populations, as among poor communities, quilombolas, indigenous and LGBTQIA+ populations, giving them opportunity to grow inside our company. In addition, we hope to create a strong environment where everyone feel themselves represented and welcomed.

1. Courses:

• We receive a 20% commission from each class offered on the platform.
• Partnerships

2. Animated Videos:

• Ads on
• Views
• Sell bilingual books, puzzles and toys

3. Museum

• Sale of museum-related products.
• Selling digital content, stories and experiences.
• Building digital communities.
• Partnerships

We submitted Sawubona to government incentives to local cultural companies to start its operation, as well as we are looking for raise funds.

We believe we have an strong business model to cover our expenses after this initial investments.

Sawubona is also exploring revenue streams, YouTube partner program, and developing content for historical societies and/or school districts.

DFI is also exploring revenue streams outside of traditional philanthropic sources, including by obtaining video licenses, joining the YouTube partner program, and developing content for historical societies and/or school districts., and we believe that wit these funds we can grow enough to became sustanteble.

We still doesn't raise any external fund.