Opinion | For war-ravaged youth, education is an anchor amid chaos, not a luxury
Education systems adapted to local conditions are strategic, long-term investments in community resilience. It must be treated as a frontline intervention in a crisis
Most global actors still treat education as an afterthought during crises, something to address only once food, water and shelter are secured. But in places like Palestine, Syria and Afghanistan, this hierarchy collapses. Education isn’t a post-crisis luxury; it’s the anchor in the chaos.
Over the past decade, I’ve learned that education must be treated as a frontline intervention, restoring not only learning, but also safety, identity and hope. It’s not just about classrooms. It’s about systems that endure.
This requires a different mindset, prioritising community-led design over one-size-fits-all frameworks, embedding psychosocial support structurally, trusting youth with leadership and planning for local ownership from the start. Education isn’t what follows survival; it’s how people survive.
We don’t need more tool kits, we need a mindset shift. Global actors must listen more, prescribe less and embrace complexity over metrics. Only then can we build education systems that endure when everything else collapses.
In the years that followed, we began to understand that restoring education in crisis zones wasn’t only about reopening schools, it was also about building adaptable systems. Our work began to evolve beyond emergency. We developed scholarship programmes for marginalised and refugee youth, not as charity but as strategic, long-term investments in community resilience.
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