Private Sector Mobilizes to Educate Refugee Children in Lebanon

The private sector initiative comes amid growing estimates of the number of out-of-school Syrian refugees in Lebanon.  It comes in answer to an UNHCR call    Of the half-million Syrian refugee children in Lebanon , 200,000 of them are not enrolled in school, even with a significant increase in refugee enrollment thanks to initiatives undertaken by the Lebanese government. 

George and Amal Clooney , both staunch supporters of human rights, made the official announcement of the project and showed a video in a UN General Assembly session calling the private sector to action.    remarked Amal Clooney .   George added.

The Clooney Foundation for Justice will be working with SABIS®, a global education management company, to roll out a phased plan to open schools starting in September 2017 . In the first year of the plan, the schools will enroll between 5,000 and 10,000 refugee children as well as Lebanese children who are not enrolled in school. In subsequent years, additional schools will be added to increase capacity by up to 50,000 students per year.

The schools, which will be located in areas of Lebanon most heavily populated by Syrian refugees, will implement the , a proven educational program that is backed by 130 years of success in the region and currently used to provide over 70,000 students enrolled in SABIS® Network schools around the world with a high-quality education.   As with all SABIS® Network schools, the schools serving the refugee children will leverage technology to drive and monitor the learning process, using digital resources that are highly interactive and capture valuable data on individual student progress to facilitate learning.

said SABIS® president Carl Bistany .   

said Radcliffe Foundation Founder and President Frank Giustra after witnessing firsthand the plight of refugees in receptor countries. The Radcliffe Foundation has actively been responding to the refugee crisis by brokering the first private sector partnership with the Greek Ministry of Migration to create the Elpida, a residence in northern Greece with capacity for 800 of the most vulnerable refugees, 60% of them youth.  It also funded the building of a receiving center with capacity for 1500 refugees arriving in the island of Lesbos.   Mr. Giustra said

Sir Richard Branson , founder of Virgin Unite, the non-profit foundation of Virgin Group that unites people and entrepreneurial ideas to create opportunities for a better world, also shared his remarks about the project:  

Start-up funding totaling $7 million USD is being provided by the project's founding members.  Additional funding is being sourced from the private sector on an ongoing basis.  To learn more about how to join the coalition, contact info@cfj.org