In 2025, classrooms across Africa and the diaspora still echo with the legacies of colonial curricula. While technological advances have connected children globally, what remains alarmingly consistent is the omission or severe distortion of Africa’s true historical narrative in formal education.

In a world where information is instant, the absence of certain knowledge becomes even more telling.

For African children, the untold or distorted history of their continent is not just a missing academic subject. It is intellectual malnourishment.

The narrative of the African woman is severely misstated, presenting her as perpetually disempowered and disadvantaged. This represents an erasure of identity, a quiet psychological violence that shapes minds long after the school bell rings.

Children learn who they are by being told where they come from. When history lessons begin with colonisation or the transatlantic slave trade, as they often do, African children are taught that their story began with victimhood.

In 2025, children can list European heroes but struggle to name even five African women freedom fighters.

This fragmented historical education creates a psychological schism. Children internalise a view of their people as passive, inferior, or “rescued” by colonisation. Pride gives way to confusion. Aspiration dims.

Social media in 2025 is a double-edged sword: it brings access to global narratives but also amplifies damaging images. Africa is still often portrayed as poor, chaotic, or war-torn. Without historical context, children internalise these representations.

They see Africa as a continent of need rather than the cradle of civilisation. They absorb the idea that success lies in leaving Africa, not building within it.

In 2025, African tech is booming, but fewer children dream of becoming historians or cultural curators. When African history is taught as irrelevant or backwards, it teaches children to look outward for excellence – toward Silicon Valley, Europe, or Asia – not inward to their own roots.

This absence creates intellectual dependency. Mental colonisation outlives the physical one. Yet in scattered classrooms, libraries, and digital platforms, a quiet revolution is growing. Teachers are rewriting lesson plans. Parents are sharing oral stories passed down through generations.

Children are watching animations about Queen Nzinga and reading graphic novels about the kingdoms of Axum and Kush.

A glimpse of hope exists in initiatives like the Kabrazen podcast, created by the LAM Sisterhood, a creative fellowship of Kenyan women exploring authentic African tales.

Through over 13 episodes in both Swahili and English, they’re rewriting children’s understanding of African female heroes through imaginative storytelling.

Listening to their depictions of figures like Field Marshall Muthoni Kirima, whose bravery fought colonial efforts to extinguish the Mau Mau independence movement, reveals how unaware we are of our own stories.

Their portrayals of Queen Nzinga of Angola or Mariama Sonko of Senegal highlight what we have been missing. As a people, we have gone too long without experiencing and relishing our richness in stories.

The Kabrazen podcast intends to both entertain and educate Gen Alpha and their parents.

The effect is profound. Children who learn their full history walk taller. They speak with rootedness. They create with courage.

They begin to see Africa not just as their home, but as the foundation of global civilisation, from the birth of humanity to modern revolutions.

The writer is a media personality.