Education for children in warzones
WAR CHILD
Every child has the right to education. However, more than 22 million children worldwide don’t have access to an education, as they are war refugees. The Can’t Wait to Learn program is a War Child Initiative. Its main goal is to reach hundreds of thousands of young children with fun educational games teaching them fundamental basic skills such as literacy and numeracy. The Can’t Wait to Learn program achieved this in refugee camps by home-schooling children using tablets that don’t require an internet connection.
WHY?
In refugee camps, there is often a lack of schools, teachers, teaching materials and money. That was the main reason for War Child to develop educational games that enable children to learn through play, making it easy for them to understand and aligning with their culture.
OUR SOLUTION
Together with War Child, we developed custom-made educational mini-games with which children can learn basic skills such as literacy and numeracy. The tablets do not require an internet connection and can be used anywhere. We used the work of local designers and artists as much as possible, which made the games, the design and the storylines recognizable and appealing for these children.
IMPACT
At the moment, the Can’t Wait to Learn program is active in Uganda, Lebanon, Jordan, Sudan, Chad, and Bangladesh. The biggest challenges we’ve faced are working with remote locations, as well as the lack of infrastructure and available resources. Nonetheless, we’ve already reached about 20,000 children with the Can’t Wait to Learn program. The program is also seen and internationally recognized, as Can’t Wait to Learn received the King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa *Prize on Innovation in Education *from UNESCO in 2019.