Belgium

In 2019, LWB Belgique launched the program Les Voyageuses du Numérique (“Digital Traveling Women”), workshops designed for women over 55 years of age who have been excluded in the digital transformation. The goal is to strengthen their digital skills and overcome the isolation that results from digital exclusion, as well as giving them more confidence in themselves. These training programs are done at the same time as the “digital breakfasts” reserved for women to create an atmosphere that promotes trust and sharing. Since the launch of this project, five Espaces Publics Numériques (Digital Public Spaces, or EPNs) and libraries have hosted these breakfasts, attended by 36 “traveling women.” Each participant takes part in a series of ten workshops, giving each woman the opportunity to progress and develop new digital skills each week, creating a link between each one. We continue striving to promote the digital inclusion of all women by continuing to hold these digital breakfasts in ten Francophone libraries. 

In Belgian schools, our team organizes themed workshops for students and teaching staff, with the help of the Digital Travelers. We selected three series of in-class activities that take an average of ten hours to complete aimed at sparking students’ interest in technology and developing their creativity, critical thinking, and digital citizenship. Using these, we train teachers to give these workshops with their students before lending them the necessary materials. Over a period of two weeks, teachers test the digital technology in class while we remain available in case they need more personalized support. This workshop design offers an introduction to simplified material for the teachers, and allows them to break down the digital barriers at their schools. Between January 2019 and March 2020, 50 teachers and 386 students across ten schools and two youth centers benefited from this program. This is the equivalent of 105 hours of workshop facilitation. It is clear that the majority of teachers, once they feel reassured by the support provided, choose to implement the longest and most complex activity series. In 2020 we directly impacted 90 teachers and 2,250 students, in addition to 250 teachers and 6,250 students via our online training platform.

In Belgium, reducing social and educational inequality poses a huge challenge. Schooling makes little difference to the performance gap between students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and their better-off classmates. To face this challenge, LWB Belgium provides concrete solutions to teachers through pedagogical tools that are adapted to suit students’ different learning levels and different learning contexts. We deliver this through the Khan Academy to French-speaking schools, tuition centers, associations, and libraries. We provide resources for mathematics and sciences subjects that have been adapted for the Belgian curriculum and give schools access to the online learning platform, and we offer a free and personalized service to different users. In 2019, we trained more than 450 people through the program including parents, teachers, educators, and trainers. 303,000 users have connected at least once during the year, with 42,000 new users registered on the platform. This is an increase of 60%, of which 36,000 are students and 6,000 are teachers or coaches. We continue striving to train even more people but also to increase public awareness of the Khan Academy so that the platform becomes more widespread and there is continuous growth in user numbers.

In response to the lack of training for teachers on issues related to online safety, cyberbullying, and adopting good online practices, we developed an educational kit known as “Cyber Heroes” in 2018. Created in partnership with cybersimple.be, we offer teachers a kit of turnkey activities to address the subject of digital citizenship in class in a way that is simple and fun. In doing so, we want to equip children from 8 to 14 years old with the necessary skills for safely navigating everything it has to offer with confidence. Between January 2019 and February 2020, we trained 403 teachers in 82 Belgian schools. In total, over 20,000 students were educated in the Cyber Heroes’ practices. In 2020, we increased our impact among young people and expanded our activity into Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels, in both French and Dutch. We also offered more in-depth and personalized support to teachers, while including parents more in the process.