BLINKIST at Promise Hub in Nakivale Refugee Settlement

Meet our fantastic new partner BLINKIST here in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda

 With the arrival of new high-tech gadgets (internet is included as a radical tool in modern technology), the virtual world is taking the flow, offices are no longer the same as a decade before even some aspects of schooling are shifting more and more to a virtual world.

 Every day in Africa people spend an average of 3hours10 minutes on social media. The number of internet lovers is rising with the availability of the internet and the growing flow of electronic gadgets into the market of the African continent. Smartphones are becoming more affordable (new devices as well as refurbished devices from Europe, UAE, United States, etc).  This is a transition to what we would have called the "wizard period", a period where people interact with electronic devices more than any period before. Despite the race to sophisticated technologies people feel more connected and eager to adapt to the virtual world than the physical one.

 Unfamiliar with new devices, having brand-new gadgets reflects someone's wealth, intelligence, coolness, or simply success. Here modern technology is a subject of luxury and fashion but the fact is that more than half of all smartphones sold in Africa cost the owner less than $100 and are more than likely made in China. Furthermore, electronic gadgets and the internet have changed our routines, the way we talk, the way we think, the way we build, the way we educate… It makes life easy, it connects people all over the world like never before. The same benefits apply to book reading, where civilizations look to the virtual world, and time becomes more expensive, and every second counts: ”Time is money”.

 In Nakivale for example, people spend more time implementing tasks and having little time to read books. With the same intention to read and understand the contents of the book yet, they spend more time on social networks and watching television.

 In one of our discussions with students in Nakivale, John - a senior student at Nakivale Secondary School- confessed to us: ”…books are boring just by seeing the number of pages I feel nervous and decentralized unlike social networks or watching TV or doing work with a computer that is enjoyable and very efficient.” The same opinion relates to a considerable number of Nakivale inhabitants.

That being the case, Promise Hub has partnered with Blinkist, a German book-summarizing subscription service to solve this problem. Blinkist let you read the key lessons from more than 3000 nonfiction books in 15 minutes or fewer. At a glance, you can be able to store a complete library on your phone well sorted by categories of subjects and share your favorite books with your friends who live a long distance from where you are, you can read your book or listen to the audio version.

Blinkist has a positive influence on the approach of book reading and great impact on the education system here in Nakivale Refugee Settlement (especially for our Promise Hub students aka game-changers who have experimented with Blinkist so far) as the settlement doesn't possess any libraries or any new book editions.