UNICEF Training Center in Gaza. UNICEF expands Return to Learning program for 336,000 children in Gaza Culture and education
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced a major expansion of its Back to Learning program in Gaza, one of the world’s largest extreme education initiatives. The program will cover 336 thousand children deprived of access to education due to two years of war.
According to UNICEF representative James Elder, the situation in the sector remains critical: 60 percent of school-age children are unable to learn in person, more than 90 percent of schools are damaged or destroyed, and more than 335 thousand children under five are at risk of serious developmental delays due to the collapse of services.
Progress has stalled no
Elder emphasized that before the war, Gaza had a high literacy rate and education was a key element of sustainability and development. Today, schools, universities and libraries have been destroyed, and many years of progress have essentially come to naught.
“Every child deprived of the opportunity to learn is a potential engineer, doctor or teacher whom we lose before he can change his world,” Elder noted.
How it works program
Together with the Palestinian Ministry of Education, the United Nations Relief Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other partners, UNICEF is developing a network of multifunctional training centers. Children will receive basic reading, writing and math skills, psychosocial and mental health support, and access to health, nutrition and protection services.
UNICEF currently supports more than 100 of these centers, but demand far outstrips capacity, with long waiting lists everywhere and families setting up makeshift classrooms in tents and destroyed buildings.
“Learning Saves Lives”
James Elder noted that education in Gaza is not an afterthought, even amid shortages of water, food and shelter. The training centers provide security and access to vital information, making them part of the humanitarian response.
UNICEF is also continuing to supply winter clothing and thermal blankets to Gaza and is working to restore water treatment systems and reopen nutrition centers.
“Hope is rising reality”
Almost half of the population of Gaza are children. To provide education to 336 thousand schoolchildren by the end of the year, UNICEF needs $86 million. “That’s about what the world spends on coffee for an hour or two,” noted Elder.
He emphasized that the Return to Learn program is a bridge to restoring a full-fledged education system, and not a replacement for it: “Our task now is to return elements of normal life to children and point them in the direction of development. Hope becomes reality.”