By Gami Tadanyigbe
Following a successful debut in 2025, DO Take Action returns with an expanded Signing Bee 2026, the latest expression of its continued drive to make inclusive education the standard, not the exception, supported by partners: Let’s Talk Humanity, Daisy Oak Foundation, Platonic Academy, Cedar Seed Foundation and Vivacity Development.
DO Take Action, founder and lead organiser of the Signing/Spelling Bee Initiative, has announced the 2026 edition of the Signing/Spelling Bee Competition, the second and largest edition of its flagship inclusive education initiative for children and young people with diverse abilities.
The 2026 competition builds on the success of the inaugural 2025 edition held in Abuja and represents a significant expansion in both scale and partnerships. This year’s edition welcomes a co-host, Let’s Talk Humanity (LTH), and new partners, including Daisy Oak Foundation, Platonic Academy Namibia, Vivacity Development and Cedar Seed Foundation.
The competition reflects DO Take Action’s broader commitment to advancing an education system where every child, regardless of ability, can access opportunity, participate meaningfully, and thrive.
The competition brings together deaf and hard-of-hearing learners, children with autism, ADHD and learning difficulties, visually impaired learners, and gifted and talented spellers to compete on a single national stage. Participants will demonstrate their words using the communication method that works best for them, including Nigerian Sign Language, Braille, or spoken and written formats.
“How can we talk about sustainable development when a child’s ability to learn, communicate, participate, or even dream is limited simply because they experience the world differently? These children are not going to be defined by their differences, but recognised by their strengths. Different abilities, one stage,” said Precious Ebere, Executive Director of DO Take Action.
Signing Bee launched in 2025 as a single-city pilot in Abuja, establishing proof of concept for an inclusive, multi-format spelling competition. One year later, DO Take Action is scaling that model into a growing national platform, widening its category structure, deepening its partner network, and laying the groundwork for the initiative’s continent-wide ambitions.
“As this year’s cohost of the Signing Bee, we are proud to support an initiative that demonstrates what truly inclusive education can look like in practice. This year’s expanded competition creates space for children with different abilities to participate, communicate, compete, and be recognised for their strengths. At Let’s Talk Humanity, we believe inclusion should not be an afterthought or an accommodation, but a standard in how we design opportunities for every child.
By bringing children with diverse abilities into the same space and celebrating their unique ways of learning and expressing themselves, the Signing Bee is helping to challenge limiting perceptions of disability.
We are excited to be part of an initiative that puts inclusion into action and reminds us that every child deserves the opportunity to learn, belong, and thrive.” Fatima Ganduje Ajimobi
As a champion for education, DO Take Action sees inclusion not as an add-on, but as a fundamental part of how education should be designed and delivered. The Signing/Spelling Bee Initiative is part of the organisation’s wider effort to build education systems that recognise ability, remove barriers, and create meaningful opportunities for every child to participate and succeed.
For DO Take Action, inclusive education means moving beyond adapting children to fit existing systems. It means building competitions, curricula, learning environments, and community structures that are designed to respond to the diverse needs and abilities of children.
Signing/Spelling Bee 2026 brings this vision to life, creating a platform where children and young people with diverse abilities can demonstrate their skills, build confidence, compete alongside their peers, and be celebrated for what they can do.
This year, the initiative makes a historic leap beyond Nigeria, scaling to Southern Africa as Platonic Academy Namibia takes the hosting lead for the inaugural Signing Bee Namibia. This milestone cross-border expansion leverages Platonic Academy’s strong national connections to champion neurodiversity and sign language visibility, marking the first major step in establishing a recurring, continent-wide platform for disability inclusion.
“Inclusion cannot merely be a policy conversation; it must be a lived experience where every child steps onto the stage and confidently says, ‘I belong here, I can do this, and my ability matters,’” said Amanda Mungunda, an esteemed Namibian mathematics and science educator and Co-Founding Managing Director of Platonic Academy Namibia. “While Namibia has made commendable progress, with primary schools featuring adapted infrastructure growing from just 3.7% in 2020 to nearly 25% today, we recognize that true inclusion requires platforms that actively celebrate our children’s unique strengths.
By bringing the Signing Bee to Namibian soil this November, we are bridging national borders to dismantle systemic barriers. As a mathematician, I see this partnership as writing the ultimate equation for Africa’s future: when we unite across the continent to empower our diverse minds, there is absolutely no limit to what they can achieve.
This is more than an event; it is the dawn of a pan-African movement.” Mrs Amanda Mungunda, Co-Founder, Platonic Academy Namibia
But the competition is more than an event. It is a visible expression of a larger commitment to making inclusion a standard feature of education, rather than an afterthought.
DO Take Action is therefore working to take the lessons, partnerships, and momentum generated through the Signing/Spelling Bee beyond the competition itself and into broader efforts to advance inclusive education across communities and institutions.
The Signing Bee is now established as an annual fixture on DO Take Action’s calendar. In 2026, the competition will expand beyond Nigeria for the first time, with the Abuja edition taking place on 30 October, followed by the inaugural Signing Bee Namibia later in the year, hosted by Platonic Academy Namibia.
This marks the initiative’s first step beyond a single-nation event and toward its long-term vision of a truly national, continent-wide competition. Building on this momentum, DO Take Action will be working to scale the Signing Bee into further African countries in the years ahead, growing it from a national platform into a pan-African one that gives children with diverse abilities, across the continent, the same stage to be seen, heard, and celebrated.
Competition Categories
Junior (ages 8–14) and;
Senior (ages 15–18) divisions.
Through Signing Bee, DO Take Action and its partners aim to show that every child, regardless of ability, deserves a stage built for their strengths.
Fast Facts
• Event: Signing Bee 2026
• Organizer: DO Take Action
• Co-Host: Let’s Talk Humanity (LTH)
• Supporting Partners: Daisy Oak Foundation, Platonic Academy, Cedar Seed Foundation
• Theme: Different Abilities, One Stage
• Edition: Second edition: scaled up from the inaugural 2025 pilot in Abuja
• Date: 30 October 2026, 10:00 AM
• Venue: Lake Greenfield Hotel, Jahi, Abuja
Call to Action
DO Take Action is inviting schools, families, media houses, sponsors, and members of the public to register, partner, and champion Signing Bee 2026. As the initiative grows into a recurring, continent-wide platform, DO Take Action is calling on:
• Partners from other countries who would like to join the movement and support the expansion of inclusive, multi-format spelling competitions for children with diverse abilities; and
• Organisations and countries who would like to host a Signing Bee competition in their own country under the DO Take Action framework, joining Nigeria and Namibia in building a truly pan-African platform for disability inclusion.
Interested partners and prospective host countries are invited to reach out to DO Take Action to become part of this growing movement via email at hq@dotakeaction.org.
“Different abilities. One stage. This is an invitation for the world to see what these children can do,” said organizers.
Signed:
Precious Ebere-Chinonso Obi
Executive Director, DO Take Action.
About DO Take Action
DO Take Action is a civic and social impact organisation working to strengthen systems, empower communities and advance sustainable development through evidence, innovation, technology and citizen engagement.
