Open Learning Exchange is working with our Somali partners at the Dagahaley, Hagadera and Ifo refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya, where Planet Learning has been in use for the past three years. During this time, the platform has been used by more than 5,000 young people within the Community Learning Centres that are run by UNHCR. Rahma…
Continue ReadingOpen Learning Exchange is working with our Somali partners at the Dagahaley, Hagadera and Ifo refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya, where Planet Learning has been in use for the past three years. During this time, the platform has been used by more than 5,000 young people within the Community Learning Centres that are run by UNHCR. Duale…
Continue ReadingEvery child has a right to a quality basic education. From our beginning OLE has emphasized this right to education, found in Article 27 in the Declaration of Human Rights, however I now think this is a one-sided, seriously flawed statement. I now believe that every right should have responsibilities explicitly connected to it. We…
Continue Reading“Follow the money”, I was told in a recent discussion about OLE’s “business model”. That makes a lot of sense. It get it. One way or another we must to generate enough sustainable income to match sustainable expenses, with a bit more for a rainy day. However business models for satisfying basic human needs must meet multiple requirements. It is a fatal error to focus only on the financial balance sheet.
Continue ReadingOne of OLE’s goals is to promote the use of terms that carry with them connotations that increase their power and meaning. “Solutions Based Learning (SBL) is our latest promotion. We like this term because it focuses the mind on the importance of developing and implementing solutions to problems rather than simply describing them. “Talk…
Continue ReadingThe Open Learning Exchange (OLE) is proud to announce an exciting new partnership agreement with the International Education Association (IEA) in Lebanon. OLE and IEA are joining together across a number of program areas in the Middle East and North Africa beginning with our work at the Za’atari refugee camp in cooperation with UNHCR Innovation….
Continue ReadingIt is exciting to see OLE’s Theory of Change, being implemented around the world, also working well in New Jersey. David Kirp, in the New York Times, Highlights the effectiveness of change in the Union City school system, compared with the different approach taken in Newark. OLE’s most recent implementation is the Tiger Girls program…
Continue ReadingGlobal Giving’s Syrian Refugee Relief Fund has given $25,000 to the Tiger Girls program to support the training of 12 Syrian women coaches, provide 250 digital tablets, and allow 1,200 Tiger Girls to participate in team-based learning and quality education in the Zaatari Refugee Camp near the Syrian border in northwest Jordan. Please consider adding…
Continue ReadingTwo weeks ago in the Zaatari camp in Jordan for 80,000 Syrian refugees I was struck by the energy and hope of the adolescent girls there who are excited by OLE’s Tiger Girls program. Now, Global Giving is now matching dollar for dollar, up to $1,000 for each contribution, to the Tiger Girls program ….
Continue ReadingAt dinner this evening in Beirut, the mother of my host family spoke of a conversation she had a few weeks ago with a Syrian widow with two boys, ages 8 and 10. They had fled Syria but had not been able to get the papers needed that would enable them to stay in Lebanon. This…
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