Story summary

Ifrah*, a six-year-old girl, resides in one of the refugee camps in the Liban zone, Somali Region with her parents, who are originally from Somalia. Since the center in her camp is not fully functional, she now participates in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) activities in a nearby camp. Here, she finds joy in engaging in various activities at the center, with one of her favorite pastimes being traditional handicraft artistic practices designed for girls.

Save the Children, through its Brighter Outcomes Ethiopia (BOE) project, is partnering with local organizations to establish/strengthen ECCE Centers to deliver gender-and disability-responsive quality education in the refugee camps for children like Ifrah. These ECCE centers will provide opportunities for children to learn basic skills, interact with their peers, and engage in play.

Ifrah’s story in her own words (Quotes):

“My Name is Ifrah, I am six years old.”

"I enjoy coming to the center, English and Mathematics are my favorite subjects. I participate in traditional handicraft training where volunteer mothers teach us how to decorate our hands using henna. My favorite part of the day is the henna decoration training."

In addition to receiving henna training, I enjoy activities like playing football, skipping rope, storytelling, and engaging in traditional music singing and dancing at center.

“I want to be a pilot when I grow up."

Background / Project information

Brighter Outcomes Ethiopia (BOE) project aims to enhance equitable and inclusive learning outcomes for refugee, internally displaced and host community children, particularly girls and adolescent girls, in Oromia (Bale) and Somali (Dollo Bay) regions of Ethiopia. This will be achieved through Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) working towards improving access for out-of-school children and supporting in-school children by providing inclusive and gender responsive education materials and learning environments; strengthening the capacity of teachers and Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) facilitators; and improving the delivery of quality and inclusive education with community and Woreda education authorities. This project will contribute towards achieving sustainable education by supporting local CSOs and CBOs working on refugee and IDP education to address gender and social barriers to learning for refugee and IDP groups. The project will implement education solutions on the ground targeting 28,366 children (14,422 girls, 13,944 boys and 748 children with disabilities) and 33,525 adults (17,336 women and 16,189 men); among the target children, 5,787 (2,950 girls, 2,837 boys including 31 Children with Disabilities) are refugee children and 22, 579 (11,472 girls and 11,107 boys) are internally displaced and children within host community.

Though the BOE project is still in its initial stages, there have been preparatory activities that required advance key outputs. Since the lunch of the project, Save the Children has provided Multi- Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) to 263 households (1,690 individuals ,841 males and 848 females) to help families recover from the flash floods in Dolo Ado, Ethiopia. The project also facilitated a training with partner staff on Save the Children’s (SC) Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) and Organizational Capacity Development (OCD) Tools and related issues. Based on the Training the CSOs completed OCA Self-assessment and prepared an OCD Plan. Additionally, the project organized a comprehensive training package for 32 (Female 4 and Male 28) participants of the three CSOs and SCI Project staff on gender-responsive and inclusive education. The implementing partner, Humanity & Inclusion (HI), has also commenced a review of the HI Inclusive Education Guidelines for contextualization.