We connect, train, and equip a growing network of over 400 local Catalysts – students, teachers, and community members – to lead the creation of 50 innovative community-owned learning hubs called ‘Spots’.
Through the Spots, thousands of learners engage in playful, community-rooted, and future-ready learning clubs, increasing their engagement in education and inspiring civic action.
The learners – or Sparks – are quickly becoming the future Catalysts of change, with 25% of new Spots also established by Catalysts who have moved communities through our unique application process, creating an organically emerging network across rural Ghana and beyond.
The wider organisation has developed through a participatory model that enables every Catalyst to take an active role in shaping the future of EduSpots, constantly feeding their ideas and experiences into programme design and wider decision-making, through informal and formal structures, with 50% of the staff team drawn from Catalyst backgrounds.
Read our ‘2024: Impact at A Glance’ publication below:
Note that a full Annual Report will follow later in 2025.
What is the inspiration behind our name?
The name ‘EduSpots’ is drawn from the Ghanaian concept of ‘drinking Spots’.
The founding members of EduSpots wondered why people were coming together in their numbers to solve their problems through drinking spaces, rather than education spaces.
Just as drinking Spots in Ghana are each uniquely named, with diverse music and locally stocked fridges, the Spots concept embraces the idea of local teams setting up education spaces with local relevance and leadership.
What are the core strands to our approach?
- Leadership training for Catalysts (via the Ignite Programme, Spot Lead, The Catalyse and Peer Mentoring Programmes and structured transition pathways into staff roles)
- Keeping Spots Safe education (safeguarding education for learners, Catalysts and community members in a participatory and dialogical model)
Communities choose 1-4 from the following based on interests and needs:
- Ignite Equity (gender equity clubs for girls and boys, Junior High 2)
- DigiLit Clubs (digital skills and literacy for Upper Primary)
- EcoSTEM Clubs (STEM and environmental education for Junior High students),
- EduKidz (early years education for KG- Lower Primary)
What is the future ahead for EduSpots?
“The EduSpots programme has successfully transformed educational landscapes across Ghana, fostering a new generation of active, empathetic citizens and catalysing community-driven change.” (Expectation State, Independent Study, 2025)
Following the effectiveness and scalability of our model being endorsed by Expectation State in a 2025 independent evaluation, we believe that now is the right time to grow our network significantly from 50-100 Spots. We will use this opportunity to test the scalability of our model, exploring how we can work with partners effectively in this process.
Following this, we aim to explore options to further scale of our work, researching potential partners in diverse contexts.
We are ultimately creating a grassroots network of active citizens, engaged in developing their home communities through education; students observe the volunteerism they benefit from, becoming the next generation of changemakers, reimagining the future of their communities through education.
Read our 2024 Model of Change guide here:
Watch our 2024 Ted Talk recorded in Accra here: How to Build a Movement for Community-led Education
