The educational systems around the world have had to adapt to the challenging circumstances brought by the pandemic. Despite added challenges such as limited internet access in some regions of the world, our partners continue undeterred, finding creative ways of adapting to present circumstances in order to serve their students’ educational needs. It is heartwarming to receive news of how they are coping and their recounts inspire us. 

One such example is brought to us by our partner Ahdieh Foundation in the Central African Republic. For several years, this partner has been accompanying local communities to create community schools that are born from the desire of local people—parents and teachers—to provide a high standard of education to children.

With the new health measures, classes for children have been provided through a multiplication of teaching sites with a limited number of children per site. Additional volunteer teachers have been trained to assist children from each small group of families in their writing, reading and numeracy activities. 

Students of a community school in Bangui, continuing their studies thanks the approach of decentralized schools.

This more decentralised approach has given parents the opportunity to follow the classes more closely and to gain a better understanding of the principles and pedagogical skills needed to ensure their children’s education. Some spaces for reflection on the functioning of the decentralized schools’ sites have naturally begun to develop, either among teachers in a given site or neighbourhood or with the parents of the children enrolled. 

These decentralized teaching sites have shown the potential of what is possible in the field of children’s education when a real community building dynamic, with the participation of almost the entire population of a neighbourhood or village, takes place. During this challenging period, Ahdieh Foundation has set an example on how communities have come together and taken responsibility for their student’s educational needs.

Photograph taken before the current health crisis:  a class at a community school in the Central African Republic.