Safeguarding futures: educating children through a crisis

A crisis closes schools, and the loss is never only the term's lessons. Displacement, the strain on a household, and the interruption itself push children out of education, and a child who leaves is very often a child who does not come back.

The foundation's approach has been to keep education going through the disruption rather than waiting for conditions to return to normal. That has meant working with teachers and with families to keep learning moving, and treating the practical barriers — materials, fees, a safe place to sit — as the things to solve first.

It has also meant teaching children what to do in a crisis itself: how to stay safe, who to go to, and how to cope with what has happened. A child who knows what to do when something goes wrong is in a better position to stay in school afterwards.

This work sits under the foundation's educational empowerment pillar, alongside the Fund Me Scholars programme and the health and drug education the foundation runs in schools. The pillar is described in full on the educational empowerment page.