Sesame Workshop International, South Africa (Takalani Sesame), and DBE-E³ teamed up to conduct a Needs Analysis. Our goal was to shape the content development, curation, and delivery strategy for a WhatsApp Chatbot designed for parents and caregivers in South Africa.

While Chatbot technology opens new doors for content delivery and caregiver interaction to support learning, its true value lies in providing content that meets users’ needs and adapts to the context of social media access and usage. So, we conducted a needs assessment involving caregivers from three different locations (rural, township, and urban) across three provinces in South Africa (Limpopo, Gauteng, Free State). We conducted this research in four languages (Sesotho, Sepedi, Tswana, and IsiZulu).

DBE-E³ is exploring future collaborations related to the parent Chatbot, including addressing interoperability with the TeacherConnect platform.