(Office of Her Majesty – Press Department – Amman) – The Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development (QRF), Save the Children, and the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL) convened a high-level meeting on refugee education in Amman on September 9, 2019, addressing one of the critical humanitarian issues born out of the global refugee crisis.

Held under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah, the meeting brought together philanthropists, business leaders, donor institutions, and international and regional development organizations, and was chaired by Hassan Jameel, Community Jameel President, and Kevin Watkins, Save the Children UK Chief Executive Officer.

The Amman meeting followed a high-level roundtable held at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2019, which Queen Rania also attended, and which was chaired by Hassan Jameel and Helle Thorning Schmidt, then Chief Executive Officer of Save the Children International and former Prime Minister of Denmark. The meeting was also part of the build-up to the Global Refugee Forum, which will be held in Geneva in December by UNHCR.

Speaking at the roundtable, Hassan Jameel, Community Jameel President, said, “At Community Jameel, we recognize the importance of education. By supporting teachers’ wellbeing, in conjunction with improving quality teaching practices and student learning, we have the opportunity to re-establish the transformative role of education in vulnerable children’s lives.”

Save the Children UK Chief Executive, Kevin Watkins, said, “Save the Children is celebrating 100 years of humanitarian and development experience and we are delighted to be partnering with such high-level, global philanthropists on this critical agenda.

“Over half of the world’s 25 million refugees are children. If those children were a single country, that country would be the country with the world’s worst education indicators. More than half of the world’s school-aged refugee children – 4 million in total – are out of school. These children are being denied a source of hope for the future and the passport to a better future. This is one of the greatest moral challenges facing our generation – and turning a blind eye is not an option.”

Among the attendees were senior representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UAE-based Al Ghurair Foundation for Education, the Saudi-based Alwaleed Philanthropies, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Islamic Development Bank, the LEGO Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the World Bank.

Jordan has a strong track record of welcoming and supporting refugees, and has become a leading venue for innovation in humanitarian development. Contributing to the country’s efforts in this field are QRF’s various technology-driven solutions to development challenges, including the foundation’s online education initiative, Edraak.

Following its initial launch by Queen Rania as an adult learning platform, Edraak partnered with Google.org and the Jack Ma Foundation to launch a K-12 platform, providing quality Arabic education materials to both children and adults, accessible for free to refugees and others across the region.

Another program, the Transforming Refugee Education towards Excellence (TREE) initiative, received a major boost with the announcement on Monday that philanthropic organization Dubai Cares had committed USD 1.5 million to the program.

TREE is an initiative of Save the Children and MIT J-WEL being piloted in Jordan, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and in collaboration with Community Jameel and Dubai Cares. Over a five-year period, it aims to equip Jordanian teachers with skills to deliver effective teaching, and to help students suffering from trauma overcome challenges.

Established by Queen Rania in 2013, QRF aims to improve education outcomes in Jordan and the surrounding region, focusing its efforts on a range of overlapping areas including early childhood care and dvelopment, innovation in learning, and teacher training. The foundation conducts education research, and supports policy makers as they develop education programs.

Community Jameel was established in 2003 to uphold the legacy of the late Abdul Latif Jameel, who supported and uplifted the disadvantaged in his community throughout his lifetime. Community Jameel runs its programs worldwide, collaborating with major international institutions and grassroots organizations.

Source: www.queenrania.jo

Last weekend, the full moon reminded us that we are near the middle of Ramadan, a month in which families and communities usually gather to break their fast together. But this Ramadan came during a pandemic that is more than a public health crisis, it is a crisis that is affecting every sector, including education. According to UNICEF, there are an estimated 10 million refugees in the Middle East, many of whom live below the poverty line with limited access to basic sanitation, healthcare, and education. These families will be setting aside their hopes for their children to get an education and focusing instead on survival. In the spirit of Ramadan, when we are reminded to do right even in the most difficult situations, we are blessed in that we can help these families.

The reality is that almost half of this refugee population is made up of children who dream of going to school and having a chance at an education. Unfortunately, in some Middle Eastern countries, fewer than 5% of all refugee youth make it beyond high school. This was the stark reality before COVID-19 got a foothold in the region. Without real attention, this pandemic will devastate that small ray of hope that started to build alongside the goodwill of those people dedicated to providing access to quality education for all.

Since launching the Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair Refugee Education Fund (REF) in 2018, the fund has supported over 17,000 youth in Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates to access and succeed in secondary and post-secondary education. But, as the pandemic pushes opportunities to learn into the virtual space, education is becoming further and further out of reach for the most vulnerable in this crisis. The grantees and beneficiaries of the Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair Refugee Education Fund have shared that it is the practical and logistical barriers that can be the most difficult for refugees to overcome. The loss of family income, reduced humanitarian aid, lack of access to devices and internet, and lack of local study support are tearing apart the hope and commitment these youth cling to when they dream of getting an education – despite their situations.

The priority of most international organizations is to control the spread of the coronavirus and to provide adequate protection and health services to refugee populations. As these populations survive the pandemic, it is important that the international community does not neglect assuring appropriate resources are allocated to assuring education to these youth. Indeed, UN agencies have issued an urgent appeal for additional flexible funding to counter the negative effect of the COVID-19 crisis, part of which will go to education. Other donors are coordinating to meaningfully contribute financial assistance and expertise. However, this education crisis, that sits within a refugee protracted crisis, needs more attention and resources fast, before we lose the little gains we made over the last few years.

The Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair Refugee Education Fund is collaborating closely with its grantees to identify ways to repurpose funds and creatively address the most pressing needs to assure educational opportunities are not lost. But our research showed that this response alone is not enough. Hence, the Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair Covid-19 Online Learning Fund for Refugee Education was established last month to support more children and youth by providing them with the technology, platforms, and guidance to continue their education online or on TV successfully. This emergency fund will leverage greater engagement from more partners to reach a minimum of 6,000 more children in these devastating situations.

Online learning has become the go-to solution for many organizations to try and assure education is not lost during the pandemic. But we are now well into the global school closures. We need to acknowledge that refugees and host-community youth need more than an emergency response. A collective effort to recommit to refugee education and to seek out creative localized solutions is critical to the livelihood of millions of youth in the Middle East.