Kisumu County perches on a northeastern inlet of Lake Victoria, the largest body of fresh water in Africa. The lake’s basin is an emerald green gateway between the deserts of Somalia and Ethiopia to its east, and Central Africa’s mountainous jungle terrain to its west. Kisumu plays a vastly important role in the region’s political, economic, and environmental success, especially in agriculture and trade.

It is described by its inhabitants as vibrant - full of life, music, youth, and ambition. Last summer, the County secured grant funding towards conscious and green urban development of the lakefront, another leap forward in the region’s already-groundbreaking urban engineering.

However, a secretive plight is lurking among the sparkling waters and musical streets.

Mary Adhimabo Odongo notices that children sleep in class. They have trouble focusing, holding conversations, and completing their work or passing exams - even when their at-home grades are flawless.

Alongside others who had noticed these problems and felt similar passions towards solving them, Adhiambo Odongo founded Digital Health Education Network in Kenya (DHEN-K). Its influence stretches from Nairobi to Kisumu, Mary’s hometown, where she has worked tirelessly to bring her vision to life.

Barriers to Understanding

The plan began with the Ministries, chapters of Kenya’s government tasked with sectors like wellbeing, national security, and citizens’ livelihoods. With the permission of the appropriate Ministries - in her case, Health, Children’s, and Education - she could move forward in entering schools and community centers to create real change.

Mary hosted community forums, which united administrative representatives and community members in conversation. She wanted to know what people thought the problems were, and how they wanted to go about solving them. She also wanted to share her goal of a healthy digital future.

What she found was perhaps a little surprising. Mary tells us that the first and perhaps most prominent issue is a vital misunderstanding of digital addiction.

Children often observe addictive or irresponsible technology use from their parents, who may not even realize it’s an issue, Mary shares. Some parents don’t realize that their children mimic their behavior, and some struggle with the idea of setting boundaries. Mary encourages parents to “tell them that the phone is not for children. The phone is mine. For a child, there’s this, and this is yours”.

Additionally, working parents, mostly women, have few other tools of pacification - especially when faced with the financial choice between helping a customer or attending a crying child. Work and other stressors can add to the obstacles of connecting with a child or helping them find other mechanics of comfort infstead of the phone. Many parents cite that they simply do not have the time, sometimes not the energy, for this emotionally-intense work, and the phone is the easiest resolution.

“This forum was not enough to educate the parents about digital addiction. It was just for interaction,” Mary explains.

Mary adds that the problem is complicated by an inevitable shift, where many schools are in the process of digitizing homework. When used incorrectly, this could potentially fan the problem of digital dependency and further obfuscate parents’ understanding of it. For over a decade, programs like One Laptop Per Child and Computers for Schools (CFSK) have helped bring technology to low-income and low-access areas, including in Kenya. Amazing organizations like these are rooted in a vital belief that youth should feel empowered and are not left behind. DHEN-K’s focus is parallel to, not against this progress, addressing it from the lens of harm reduction, of educating children and families about how to remain safe and alert in the changing digital landscape.

Mary describes herself and her work as a partner to understanding, not someone who takes ownership over the ultimate answers. She wants to empower families and educators - and the further administrative structures around them - to understand digital misuse and its risk towards addiction. “I wanted this awareness and digital addiction elimination to be a work of collaboration,” Mary explains. “I never want it to be for [me], or for Digital Health Education Network. Because as much as we feel we have solutions, they own the solution, for these children. We don’t own that solution.”

So, what are the problems? How do they manifest, and what is their potential impact on learners?

In addition to the highly addictive risk factor of social media and its interpersonal pressure, there are very real safety concerns. Cyberbullying has become a very mainstream issue, complicating the already-dense social dynamics of youth and school life by giving bullies the ability to harass behind the protection of a screen. Some issues even link to much bigger criminal networks - Mary recounts the story of a mother whose daughter had been communicating with a man online who promised her money if she were to meet up with him, but ended up kidnapping and exploiting her.1

The parents were, for the most part, very receptive. Now, she could shift towards schools.

The United Front

In school, Mary split her focus evenly between the teachers and pupils. She met with children from seven to seventeen years old and asked them to describe their relationships with their devices, and to identify potential problems. She asked teachers where the biggest disconnects seemed to be. Both seemed cyclically shortcoming the other: school personnel found it difficult to enact syllabus change, and students were lacking the proper educational support and discernment to understand the deeper problems.

Mary proposed introducing digital health into Life Skills lessons, a general health and wellbeing curriculum already well integrated into education. Establishing digital health reminders into the school structure would help children understand better. “The school … will always remind the children what is required of them, and the repercussions of getting more time in a digital access”.

While this ball began rolling, Mary acquired the help of a counselor to manage the booming interest of schools and professionals and the subsequent workload. Ideally, she explains, she would be able to deliver lectures and lessons herself - but she is only one woman, and the problem is everywhere.

Spending this time in schools, and now with a united front of educators behind her, Mary had the opportunity to document issues and patterns in the school social setting in real time.

Then, there was the curious case of scores. Students who were getting 100% marks on their homework were failing tests on the same subjects. This was confounding for teachers, whose grading patterns revealed the shocking inconsistencies, as well as parents, who could not understand why a child who succeeded normally could not do so out of the house. The difference was access to devices. “And, imagine,” Mary laughs, “even the teachers didn’t have this response until I was there, now they’re saying, like, ‘ahh!’".

The children feel misunderstood. Above all, Mary stresses, consistency is the most important thing. The social dynamics of youth mean that children are sometimes more inclined to mimic the poor behavior of their peers than the good behavior modelled in lectures and by adults.

So, what now?

Dance, Sing, & Educate

Mary found these patterns across three main schools. With this she devised four lessons. She aimed to create diverse angles of messaging that appealed to students from all different backgrounds and digital health situations, using posters, peer-to-peer discussions, health clubs, and alternate activities to supplement her lesson plans.

She recounts games with a smile on her face. She carries a bag full of physical games that not only stimulate the mind, but also move the body and encourage peer interaction. She makes sure to include something for every child and focuses on meeting them wherever they are at.

Students in Mary’s programs come together to dance and sing, even on the weekends. Their participation isn’t forced - they have simply been approached with compassion, and, in understanding the digital problem, are choosing to work at fixing it.

Mary wanted to use lesson plans and activities to build self-confidence, strength, understanding, and competency. She hopes that these tools will help to address the deeper psychological and social implications of digital misuse.

“These children [know] what they should do,” Mary says, smiling. “And I also realize the solution is with them.”

What Comes Next

Mary’s work expands from on-the-ground work to broader research on digital addiction and its implications. Before founding DHEN-K, Mary worked with the Ministry of Health to observe hospitals, specifically expecting and new mothers who used screens in excess.

The problem is not going anywhere - in fact, it will probably get worse before it gets better. Mary stresses the importance of understanding the problems and of building good foundational and social skills to equip us for an unknown future.

Watch her full interview here,
and learn more about DHEN-K here, including how to show your support, here.