Meet Umar

Umar is an 8-year-old Somalian whose family migrated to Nigeria and settled in the Rugga Community at Wuye, Abuja. He is a beneficiary of the FlexiSAF Foundation’s Accelerated Learning (AccLearn) program.

Despite Umar’s condition of Articulation Disorder; a speech impairment in which he is unable to correctly pronounce certain words and oftentimes when he speaks, his speech sounded slurred. He was enrolled in the AccLearn program because we believe education should be inclusive.

Umar’s challenges were multifaceted, first, as a migrant child from Somalia, he did not have mastery of any of the Nigerian languages. Therefore, he was withdrawn and lacked confidence in himself. Umar became a victim of peer ridicule, which exacerbated his poor interpersonal skills.

Umar’s growth through AccLearn

The AccLearn curriculum comprises literacy, numeracy, life skills, and computational thinking. The literacy curriculum is designed to teach the children letter sounds using the Jolly Phonics approach where they learn each letter sound in isolation and then blend it into two to three letter sounds. This approach of learning is similar to the traditional articulation therapy approach and has greatly improved Umar’s condition.

With the life skills curriculum in which topics range from collaboration, tolerance, hygiene, and mutual respect; Umar has been empowered with the necessary skills to ‘come out of his shell’ and become the best version of himself. Although there is still room for improvement, Umar has shown laudable development and is more confident.

Today, our Umar can correctly articulate words he used to find difficult to pronounce. He can read two and three-letter words in English. Umar can also read and identify numbers ranging from 1-30 independently. He is now very active in class and he is always the first student to come to class. His communication skills have also improved significantly.

Umar wants to be a medical doctor when he grows up; we hope he finds help to achieve his dream career.

Please donate to #SaveAcclearn and play a role in making Umar’s dream come true.