Education for all

The Syrian Crisis will be entering its Thirteenth year, and continues to drive the most significant refugee crisis in the world. Today, more than one million Syrian refugees live inside Lebanon's borders, of which almost are of school-age and in need of affordable quality education opportunities. In addition, several thousand vulnerable Lebanese residents and Palestinian refugees are also in need of subsidized education services; their prospects of receiving this are diminished by the weight of the Syrian refugee influx., many poor families are resorting to negative coping mechanisms - including engaging in child labor and child marriage; rendering many thousands of children vulnerable to violence, abuse, and exploitation.

To achieve improved access to education opportunities, the increased level of poverty and unemployment rate pushes more children into a work situation and out of education. Our strategy looked into more creative alternative methods to increase demand for non-formal education. Such methods will include more integrated and effective outreach approaches. Outreach will also aim to increase the engagement of parents in education, in order to change their thinking towards education and send their children to non-formal education.

To encourage children to stay in schools or learning spaces, and for parents to send their children and keep them there, new incentives will be explored. For this to happen, SAWA  will focus on strengthening its work on parent engagement. It will also maintain proper access to non-formal education. This would support the overall goal of reducing the numbers of children either out of school or out of learning. The modality of learning is fully face-to-face.

Sawa for Development Association (SAWA)’s project funded by the Ushagram Suisse Association  reached 200 child refugees aged 8-14 years old to improve the community’s access to non-formal education through a Basic Literacy and Numeracy (BLN) program which include: Arabic, English, Maths , Psychological and Social support, and activities. The child refugees were distributed between 3 villages, 50 students from Qab Elias, and 100 students from Mansoura. 50 Students from Khiara , Out of the 300, there are 120  and 80 boys.

This BLN program aims that all out of school children (OOSC) who have been enrolled in this program will be able to read, write, communicate orally, understand and use simple numeracy skills in their everyday lives and in further learning in order to live satisfying lives in their society. Therefore, the following general objectives of this BLN program have been selected directly from the official national preschool curriculum developed by CERD because it is believed that the national KG3 learning objectives are the most appropriate ones to achieve the BLN objective since they develop the child’s linguistic, logical, socio-emotional, artistic and motor skills, serving as a pathway for entry into formal schools.

1- Develop the child into a social person who acquires constructive culture and habits that reinforce his/her spirit of openness, cooperation, integration, interaction and active participation with others.

2- Strengthen the learning process in order to develop the child’s sensory, physical, emotional, social, and intellectual skills, so that the child can express him/herself, the needs and perceptible discoveries, and think and imagine so as to expand his/her experience, discover the world and build up their information base.

3- Assist the child to adapt to the school atmosphere, fit into the new environment and be well prepared for the next stage, taking into consideration his/her childhood and needs.

Sawa for Development Association provides its aid to one of the most marginalized communities in Bekaa, Lebanon. Through integrated and effective outreach approaches, we were able to secure 8  BLN-trained teachers for our project who in turn were being economically empowered through compensation for their services. Each teacher provides 4 hours per day for 5 days per week, for a total of 80 hours per month. Teachers were using monitoring tools to evaluate the children and keep track of attendance. When absences are noted, the parents are contacted in order to motivate the children back to the sessions. 

The program is divided into 3 levels that students have to complete and pass through each individual level that has a timeframe of 4 months to pass on to the higher level. By the end of the program, children will be qualified to study at formal schools and continue their education.