We are so excited to announce that both our English and Swahili Akili and Me YouTube channels have gained over 2 million views! While you may think that most of the views come from Tanzania, and indeed they do for the Swahili channel, most of our viewership for the English YouTube channel come from the U.S.
At first, you’d think that they were African immigrants raising kids abroad, but a look at the comments left on YouTube videos shows that many of them are African-American parents scouring and looking for representative and educational cartoons for their kids.
While there is also an increase in U.S based cartoons with African-American lead characters, like Doc McStuffins and Sid the Science Kid, the appeal of Ubongo cartoons is that they are both educational and also offer African-Americans a sense of connection to Africa that is positive and not based on stereotypes of the continent.
While Akili and Me is a Tanzanian brand, our goal was always to reach kids across Africa with fun and educational content. It’s great that the African diaspora is also benefiting from the show!
