6 months into the shirt project, GEKKO had twin goals: providing livelihood to families and building urgently required wifi-connected learning centres so that children and youth in the communities may attend school through online classes.

 

During the pandemic, familes in the communities have lost their income and whatever meager resources they have were for more basic needs (food, clean water). There were no extra funds to buy data for online access. Many students were forced to not continue with the online schooling. The solution was to build  wifi-connected learning centers in each community so that students can have online access even with strict covid-19 protocols.

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The GEKKO Learning Center Initiative, led by Matthew Sennelius and participated by all GEKKO team members, was born. GEKKO had to double its shirts production and sales to raise funds for the building of the learning centers.

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Today, GEKKO has built 17 learning centers with expanded functions: education support (tutorials); online technical training programmes for young adults; face-to-face training programs for adults including for the sustainable farming and micro-enterprises.