Programs in Urgent Need of Support
To invest in a program that holds particular meaning to you, and that currently needs funding to keep going so that more and more children and youth in the world, especially girls and women, can be empowered, find meaning and develop connection, please invest in Open Learning Exchange, and let us know the program you’d like to support. Thank you!
Program currently in need are in the areas of:
- refugee education
- healthy supply chains
- scaling, sustaining and reframing education.
REFUGEE EDUCATION
Dadaab, Kenya
OLE’s Planet Learning platform has been in use for the past three years in the Dadaab, Kenya refugee camps of Dagahaley, Hagadera and Ifo. During this time, more than 5,000 young people in the community learning centers run by UNHCR have benefited from the learning resources, course and team approach of the Planet system. Read the stories of transformation here from several refugee children living in these camps..
$25,000 is needed to sustain this program for another year.
$50,000 will enable this program to scale to double its size.
Peacebuild in Somalia
Please do what you can to preserve the talent efforts of the Somali refugee coaches who are critical to the success of this program. These remarkable, talented coaches will also serve as OLE’s pipeline for a PeaceBuild initiative currently in the planning phases for Puntland, Somalia! Itis most important for this impactful work that we are able to retain these individuals.
Free Education Library for Syrians
To meet the challenge of the nearly 12 million young Syrian refugees to access meaningful, quality education and avoid being the “lost generation”, OLE’s solution is to develop Planet Learning- Free Education library for Syrians. This will provide a place where Syrian refugees find free and meaningful learning resources directly relevant to their needs and experiences as refugees. The digital library includes resources needed for a Syrian basic education and for education in their host country. It will include resources enabling refugees to choose and pursue career pathways and guides helping refugees of all ages adjust to, and find help in, their host country. The multi-media library will be free, on the internet, in Arabic and in the primary languages of their current host country. Each learner will have a personal dashboard with the resources and courses they have chosen that can be used online or downloaded. They will form and join learning teams with shared goals. Syrian refugees will be able to find volunteer mentors and coaches as they learn how to rebuild their lives that have been disrupted.
$155,000 will enable an already-in- place star-team of influencers, connectors, and respective member country librarians, educators and people working with Syrian refugeesin the community to develop a replicable, scalable model!
HEALTH SUPPLY CHAINS
Healthy Communities
The Planet Health learning platform, OLE’s first venture into public health, is an approach to strengthening the health supply chain for remote African villages by providing the learning system to Village Health teams. Working in partnership with the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Uganda Ministry of Health, MUST (Mbarara University of Science and Technology) and the Bogoye Health Clinic in rural Western Uganda, it is a program that seems likely to grow rapidly and, currently in use in two villages, Bogoye and Ruboni. Uganda, itself, has 800,000 Village Health Workers, most of whom have little or no training as first responders in their villages. Our dream is for the government of Uganda to ask MGH and OLE to help them scale this program throughout the country. Planet Health is making it possible to monitor each village, in near real time, for the levels and trends of key health and illness indicators throughout Uganda and to respond to them with supplies and help much more quickly and effectively.
$200,000 is needed to scale this program to meet the needs in Uganda and to potentially have the Ministry make it a national program. This funding will enable this approach to serve as a nation model for other African countries also in desperate need of a data- driven, integrated, accessible and affordable tool to strengthen their respective health supply chains.
UNIVERSAL EDUCATION
OLE Madagascar
OLE Madagascar, like OLE Ghana [LINK], is in formation to be a nation-based program to bring universal quality education to its people! Initiated on year ago by a husband and wife team who had been Peace Corps volunteers in country, the PLANET learning system is in use in three schools. A board comprised of influential Malagasy leaders and Harvard University alumni have incorporated OLE Madagascar, hired a full time Executive Director and persuaded the Minister of Education to initiate a plan for scaling PLANET throughout the country. OLE has submitted a plan for an initial “small step” by introducing PLANET in 300 Lycées (Prep High Schools).
$200,000 will establish OLE Madagascar as the first time that a national government has explicitly indicated its OLE Madagascar, like OLE Ghana [LINK], is in formation to be a nation-based program to bring universal quality education to its people!