Showcase: Emergency Education Response
Poland has welcomed over one million Ukrainian refugees, opening their school systems to around three hundred thousand Ukrainian children. Almost every week there were new children walking into an unfamiliar classroom, in unfamiliar schools, with unfamiliar students, speaking and learning in unfamiliar languages. These are among the multitude of daunting challenges refugee children face in host countries, in addition to the trauma of violence and displacement. Even with the best of intentions, host communities including teachers, school staff and Polish children were unprepared to support the refugees.
It takes a community, a commitment, and consistent effort to restore a sense of normalcy in this very abnormal situation for all those involved. Our core belief is the need to support the whole system and the whole child to make a real difference – this includes the refugee and host communities. This means prioritizing childrens’ socio-emotional needs, training staff, and ensuring continued learning. It especially means involving the people around the child, especially host community peers, parents, and teachers, in a child’s learning journey by recognizing and addressing their challenges, too.
This report captures the two unique solutions that Education Above All’s Innovation Development Directorate (EAA’s ID) developed: the Ukrainian Emergency Response Packages Programme (UERP) with the Positive Education Institute (PEI) and a three series Socio-Emotional Learning TV Show with Think Equal.
The programs helped to scale the limited wrap-around support to human beings in the center of the catastrophe – that includes the refugee families, refugee children, host country children, and teachers.
The report also highlights innovative ways of partnership – working closely with local partners (PEI) and global partners (Think Equal). EAA’s ID relied on the local understanding of PEI and deep expertise of Think Equal, and supplemented the limited on-the-ground capacity with its own technical capability. The working relationship between the partners was a key factor in making the response rapid, iterative, and effective.
The report captures the incredible tenacity of the support network around refugee children by sharing examples of solutions that work irrespective of resource and time challenges, to spark the imagination of educators and innovators.
This report was first published on 30 May 2024, on the HundrED website here.
