Previous to working on the new curriculum, the RLabs team had been exploring how to adapt Zlto, a digital app developed by RLabs South Africa, for use in rural Tanzania. Zlto is a reward system which encourages self-development and community service.

Earlier capacity-building sessions facilitated by PAP focused on adapting Zlto, equipped the team with design thinking methods, including user personas and the iterative process. Through these sessions, RLabs staff built skills in understanding the feelings, perspectives, and day-to-day life of the kids through empathy mapping, role play, and storytelling. Drawing on this foundation, RLabs continued its partnership with PAP to rapidly develop a new pilot curriculum, called Grow Street, which would be tailored specifically to the needs of the street kids in Iringa.

Given timing constraints, the RLabs team had about four weeks to design this new curriculum. Additional modules needed to be included that focused on growing up and life goals, hygiene and making safer choices, family reconciliation, and interpersonal skills. Working closely with PAP, the curriculum development team, consisting of the Training Manager, Training Content Lead, and two junior trainers, defined clear goals and key metrics for the training.

The team reviewed the previous Grow Leadership curriculum to identify sessions that should be included and sessions that needed to be added and adapted to meet the training’s goals. Based on the user personas crafted during design thinking and their growing understanding of the boys’ routines and attention spans, the RLabs team decided that training would be for three hours every weekday, with meals included, for a total of four weeks. 

Together, the team mapped out daily themes, lesson objectives, and the sequencing of lessons to ensure that concepts built on each other over time. 

Shifting How Learning Happens
Understanding that the street kids were not used to a conventional classroom structure and knowing what activities interested and motivated them was key to creating an engaging and high energy curriculum. With facilitation from PAP, the team began rethinking how learning could happen, pushing beyond discussion-based sessions and group work, to designing exciting activities that teenage boys wouldn’t want to miss.

The team adopted a variation of the worst possible idea method from design thinking, referred to as “the craziest idea”, as a way to challenge themselves and unlock creativity. Starting with the most absurd idea helped trainers more easily design activities that were engaging, memorable, and would resonate with the kids. This process helped RLabs embrace the idea that iteration and revision were strengths, not signs of failure.

As the team grew more comfortable pushing themselves, they experimented with a variety of approaches to designing the lesson plans, including some friendly competition to generate innovative ideas. Curriculum reviews were intentionally held outside the office to keep the project fresh and to encourage RLabs to think creatively about how space, movement, and environment could be leveraged during Grow Street.

Critical questioning started to become embedded in the team’s process, ensuring that each activity was purposeful and reinforced the daily objectives.

Integrating Zlto
During curriculum development, RLabs identified discipline as a key challenge to program success. Through ideation sessions guided by PAP, the team explored how Zlto could be piloted with Grow Street to reinforce positive behaviors and brought to life what a non-digital Zlto could look like. They designed a simple reward structure that aligned with the boys’ motivations and logistical realities. Zlto points were intentionally embedded into daily activities to encourage desired behaviors and support the program’s objectives. 

This process demonstrated how difficult behavior change scenarios can be supported by leveraging and adapting existing systems.