Educating Children in Emergencies: An Unexpected Lifeline

Providing educational services for children is a vital intervention during emergencies, chronic crises, and early phases of reconstruction. The spectrum of activities within the sector of Education in Emergencies are wide ranging and include non-formal education, basic literacy and numeracy, cultural activities and creative expressive outlets, sports and recreation, health education, life skills, peace education, teacher training, support to Community Education Committees, youth leadership, civic development, school rehabilitation, vocational training, and capacity building for host governments.

The primary mandate of relief organizations is often limited to assistance programs that are categorized as lifesaving in scope. These initial activities typically involve the direct provision of food, shelter, water, and other essential services. Physical survival is regarded as a humanitarian imperative and all other concerns are relegated to a subordinate status. The implication is that if precious resources were diverted to less immediate realities, somehow people would be allowed to die.

Yet in the majority of today’s protracted refugee situations, people are not dying at unusually high rates. Despite the folklore of our work, these crises are more often not life or death situations. Rather, the predominant experience of refugees is a hopeless and purposeless existence.