The ECD Humanitarian Response Pilot: Building a Knowledge Base for ECD Programs in Emergency Settings

• In Event: Sesame Street in the Syrian response region

Proposal

Unprecedented armed conflicts and natural disasters are now driving a global displacement crisis. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 60 million people are displaced worldwide, and half of them are children. 1 The disruption to formal and informal learning processes that results from conflict, emergencies, and displacement can have pernicious effects. With their families under severe stress, and without clear safety nets or social service systems, children who are displaced lack the kinds of stable, nurturing and predictable learning experiences that form the foundation for school readiness and healthy, successful futures. Early interventions to provide children with critical learning opportunities can serve to protect children, mitigate the negative consequences of war and displacement, and help to address gaps in early education opportunities.2
In February of 2017, supported by Bernard van Leer and Open Societies Foundations, Sesame Workshop initiated a unique partnership with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) to support the needs of young children affected by the devastating civil war in Syria. Leveraging the power of Sesame’s Muppet characters to engage and educate children and the IRC’s on-the-ground capacity and extensive expertise working with displaced populations, Sesame developed, implemented, and assessed a set of educational print and video materials for young children (primarily aged 3-6) in Azraq Refugee Camp and in Amman, Jordan, who are experiencing displacement and crisis, as well as for children in the Jordanian host population in Amman. These resources were designed to be implemented in both formal and non-formal settings, and were integrated into the IRC’s existing services and program offerings. We also disseminated video resources widely in Jordan through television broadcast to reach host communities.
The 15-month pilot project resulted in the development of a global educational framework for multimedia resources and related implementation approaches to support young children in humanitarian settings regionally and worldwide, along with research, development, and piloting of an initial set of materials. Through these activities, we laid the groundwork for Sesame Workshop and the IRC’s larger Refugee Initiative that is currently being carried out in humanitarian settings in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Kurdish Region of Iraq.
This presentation will explore the research results of the ECD Humanitarian Response Pilot, which build a knowledge base of effective practices for improving young children’s learning and developmental outcomes in crisis contexts.

1 Facts and Figures about Refugees.” UNHCR. Retrieved from http://www.unhcr.org.uk/about-us/key-facts-and-figures.html
2 Engle, et. al. (2007). “Strategies to avoid the loss of developmental potential in more than 200 million children in the developing world.” The Lancet, 369(9557), 229-242.

Author

• Kim Foulds, Sesame Workshop