A Safe Healing and Learning Space (SHLS) is a secure, caring and predictable place where children and adolescents living in conflict and crisis settings can learn, develop and be protected. The SHLS Toolkit provides child protection and education practitioners with all of the content needed to initiate an SHLS program.

As a way of tackling the ongoing displacement crisis, the IRC is focusing on community engagement to help with the integration of resettled refugees into our local communities, through a new Community Sponsorship model called the HOME (Housing, Orientation, Mentoring, Education) program.

Mid-December 2022, the International Rescue Committee published its annual Emergency Watchlist, identifying the 20 countries in the world most at risk to face a severe humanitarian crisis or a deterioration of an ongoing humanitarian crisis in 2023. Once again, our unique methodology based on 67 indicators and discussions with key stakeholders in the region, concluded that the situations in 5 West African countries are of high concern. Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria are all countries where conflict, climate change, and economic turmoil impact the lives of millions of people and limits their access to quality health, education, and protection services, food, and sometimes, even to benefit from humanitarian assistance. These countries need the world’s attention to help displaced and host populations survive, recover, and rebuild their lives. This report aims to dive into these contexts and unpack the accelerators of the humanitarian crisis to then better identify the guardrails that decision makers need to rebuild so people can move from harm to home.

In 2022, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) implemented the Remote Early Learning Program (RELP) in partnership with Sesame Workshop as part of the Ahlan Simsim project. This project aims to provide vital educational support and resources to children in crisis and conflict-affected regions. The program targeted households with children aged 5-6. From March to June 2022, RELP reached 995 children across four regions in Lebanon. This analysis examines the costs of implementing two treatment arms during wave one of the research study: RELP alone and RELP plus Ahlan Simsim Families (ASF), a parenting support program.