Providing hearing and seeing aids paired with inclusive education in refugee camps

PCCDS, Hebron: Improves educational outcomes for students with hearing and visual disabilities. Provided hearing aids and glasses, increasing completion rates from 27% to 59%.

The PCCDS, a local NGO based in the city of Hebron, runs a programme specialized in improving the educational outcomes of students with hearing and visual disabilities in schools located in 19 refugee camps run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). From 2021 to 2023 doctors examined some 1,900 male and female students, and subsequently provided hearing aids to 211 students and glasses to 743 students. Jointly with inclusive education curricula, the completion rates among those students increased from 27 to 59 per cent.

Problems Targeted

Young people with hearing and visual disabilities in refugee camp schools in the West Bank receive poor education, if at all. Public policies to improve the situation are non-existent.

Solution, Innovation and Impact

In the 64 UNRWA refugee camps in the West Bank, the Palestinian Centre for Communication and Development Policies has initiated a programme aimed at improving the educational outcomes of students with hearing and visual disabilities. Between 2021 and 2023 the programme conducted medical examinations of approximately 1,900 students. Children also attend a year-long educational programme with qualified teachers trained in inclusive education and utilizing play and emotional education. In addition, counsellors in the UNRWA camps are trained as well. Students with hearing and visual disabilities are taught in special education courses and then are comprehensively integrated into the regular school community. Some deaf students have been transferred to a school specializing in educating the deaf, and some students with hearing disabilities have been transferred to a school for the blind. By the end of the first semester of 2023 the completion rate increased from 27 per cent to 59 per cent. IN 2023, PCCDS built two new community gardens, one in Balata camp and one in Jalazoun. These gardens are used in the process of learning through play as part of a project to improve achievement among students with hearing and visual disabilities.

Funding, Outlook and Transferability

The programme is mainly funded by the Al-Medad Foundation, based in the United Kingdom, with approximately $100,000, and it received approximately €12,000 in funding and in-kind contributions from within Palestine. UNRWA is providing teachers and teacher training, and the Consulate General of France provided the space for education and play. (Awardee 2024)

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