Restoring Hope Through Education
June 22, 2022
Education in Crisis
Due to the fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 260 million children have no access to education. What’s more, deep budget cuts and rising poverty means almost 10 million children may never return to school.
Add armed conflict into the mix and their dreams of a brighter future seem more and more uncertain.
War Child works exclusively to improve the resilience and wellbeing of children affected by conflict. But in order to uphold children’s right to a healthy mind, we must not forget their right to learn. This notion shaped our activities in 2021 - as outlined in our new Annual Report.
COVID-19 and its fallouts led to everything from school closures to a record number of dropouts
Overburdened and under-resourced, teachers are also feeling the strain
Reaching More Children In Need
We met the needs of 648, 477 children and adults over the course of 2021 - more than twice as much as 2020. We delivered a vital combination of education, psychosocial support and child protection among vulnerable communities in more than 14 countries. By investing in our growth as an organisation, we plan to support many more children affected by war and conflict in the years to come.
Our award-winning EdTech innovation Can’t Wait to Learn really stole the spotlight - finding new ways in pandemic conditions to provide 24,591 children with foundational numeracy and maths skills. In refugee camps and host communities in Lebanon and Uganda, the roll out of our Can’t Wait to Learn@Home adaptation ensured children could continue their learning journey remotely.
In DR Congo, our specially designed programme allowed children to ‘catch up’ on vital months of missed schooling. In Colombia, we embraced a new kind of education - one that sees children actively contribute to peacebuilding efforts in their communities.
Our forward-thinking 'catch up' programme in DR Congo is taking education wherever children are
Responding Rapidly to External Events
Beyond these efforts, the year was dictated by a number of external events. The May bombardment in Gaza saw us once again put our Fast Aid framework into action collaborating with the Dutch Relief Alliance and partners to deliver an extensive emergency response.
Meanwhile, our joint study with World Vision confirmed our fears surrounding COVID-19’s impact on young minds. Armed with this evidence, we presented our findings at four international conferences.
As COVID-19 swept Africa, Uganda experienced the longest school closures in the world. Alongside a wealth of distance learning projects for children, we also addressed the stress and burnout that teachers are facing through the progression of our CORE for Teachers method.
These represent just a few of our achievements. Find out in full how we responded to global developments and crises.
In the immediate aftermath of the May violence in Gaza, we put our Fast Aid framework into action
Deeper collaboration will allow us to rapidly scale up our activities for children in the years to come
Working Closer Together in 2022
The number of children living in active war zones is on the rise. On top of that, a record 50 million children are on the move due to conflict and climate-related disaster. Then there’s the COVID-19 pandemic which continues to throw a massive spanner in the works of the humanitarian sector as a whole.
That’s why we will rapidly scale up our activities in 2022 - working with and through a global network of partners. To do this we will put months of preparation into practice with the roll out of our Global Shared Platform.
As we move to a shared way of working, we are calling on everyone to give this crisis their highest priority. “Each and every one of us has the capacity to take action”, says War Child CEO Ramin Shahzamani. “But to do this right, we need each other.”
