IRAQ: TSF returns to Iraq and sets up new mLearning centre

Two weeks following the emergency evacuation of its mLearning camp in Khazar, TSF returned to the field at the end of August to recommence its activities amongst Iraqi refugee children.

TSF’s new centre is situated in Baharka, 10km north of Erbil, an IDP camp that hosts 4,000 individuals (representing around 600 families). Some 410 children are signed up to the camp’s education programme, which complemented by TSF’s mLearning centre in collaboration with Relief International.

Among all vulnerable populations in emergencies, children face the greatest risks. They face all of the difficulties encountered by adults, but typically have fewer means to protect themselves – and the denial of basic rights such as access to education has a far more detrimental impact on the young.  Disasters and conflicts can isolate children from learning for long periods of time.  This not only makes the difficulties of displacement and isolation worse in the short term, but can compromise a child’s entire future.  In large scale emergencies denying large groups of children access to education can have a detrimental impact on an entire country’s ability to recover.

"Education is life-saving. After a child has been to hell and back, education gives him or her an opportunity to go forward. Without that, the future is dim." Brenda Haiplik, education expert, UNICEF (Serene Assir, AFP, 4 September 2014)

TSF uses new communications technologies to reconnect isolated children, and new educational technologies can harness this connectivity to bring mLearning to displaced children.  For more than a decade TSF has deployed to every major emergency to establish telecommunications for displaced populations – now we have taken the next step by using our expertise to advance mobile learning, or “mLearning,” wherever children need schools.

Importantly, the aim of TSF’s mLearning activities is not to replace traditional lessons, but rather to provide an additional and more playful and interactive means of learning in emergencies, which opens the door and paves the way to creativity, imagination, sharing and ultimately, learning.