Five ways to transform schools into sites for peace
In conflict-affected communities, education can be one of the most powerful tools for social cohesion. Educational institutions can serve as positive community hubs, provide valuable violence-free safe spaces, and help bridge social divides.
In Lebanon, International Alert is working in selected public schools to promote inclusive, gender-sensitive and conflict-sensitive spaces. In an overcrowded public school system, diverse communities share a learning space with limited resources and face multiple challenges, including an economic crisis and funding decreases amid other pressing conflicts. Schools have become sites for social struggle with alarming figures for bullying and violence. Furthermore, with Lebanon hosting a large refugee and migrant population, some public schools have operated in two shifts since 2014, with Lebanese students attending in the morning and non-Lebanese students enrolling in the afternoon.
With limited opportunities for families to meet around a common project in a positive setting, Alert’s work targets the social component of education, addressing the perceptions of the “other” in a cohesive educational environment. Alert has built a holistic approach for a public school system that welcomes families in a healthy and safe environment. We are strengthening policies by collaborating with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Centre for Educational Research and Development (CERD), empowering teachers by training them on social cohesion and accompanying students in their learning experience while building bridges between the school and the school community.
The model is already helping alleviate the struggles that children in Lebanon are going through.
Within the Nataf3al consortium (funded by the Agence Française de Développement and led by the Norwegian Refugee Council), International Alert has played an advisory role, including initiatives for students, teachers, administrators, caregivers, which includes any person taking care of the children and involved in the parenting process, and the broader community. These initiatives generate evidence of the model’s efficiency, which is then used for advocating at the policy level.
Since 2021, the partnership between NRC, Amel Association and Ana Aqra Association has aimed to prevent violence against children and build a sense of belonging. The approach looks at horizontal and vertical power dynamics to find entry points to turn schools into community welcoming hubs. Building on this evidence of preventing violence and social tension in schools, we recommend:
1. Implementing peacebuilding approaches and toolkit activities
Our toolkit, developed in collaboration with CERD, outlines three steps (“getting to know you”, “teambuilding”, and “influencing the community”) that help students gain agency and ownership of the school space and impact the pillars of social cohesion, such as safety, the sense of belonging, the sense of identity, trust, relationships and resources.
Activities promoting social stability also include sports (football and athletics), arts, awareness sessions, and a student-led research plan. Nataf3al engaged 800 students during the winter cycle and 1,646 students in the summer cycle. The keys to upscaling the education programme were careful budgeting, planning with students, and implementing activities that make schools safe and welcoming spaces for all.
2. Conducting context analyses to inform peacebuilding approaches
Designing tools with stakeholders informs the implementation of a cohesion-oriented project. Nataf3al identified decision-makers in the areas of implementation of the project, namely Bekaa and Baalbek El Hermel, Beirut and Mount Lebanon, and the Northern areas. International Alert provided two phases of context analysis, with a lens on violence, bullying, and discrimination as well as entry points for peace in schools. The Nataf3al partners received training on data collection and contributed to validation meetings for the findings’ analyses.
3. Organising community-led initiatives with caregivers
For schools to be cohesive, Nataf3al recommends helping schools work with caregivers. This includes engaging caregivers in activities that respond to their needs and help schools gain visibility in the community. The project used an Alert-designed checklist to create five conflict-sensitive, community-led initiatives in Arsal, Tripoli and Barr Elias, engaging 187 caregivers. Their participants gained skills in producing well-being products (body lotions), as well as sewing (with guidance from Amel), soap-making and embroidery (with guidance from NRC), and knitting (with guidance from Ana Aqra).
4. Offering retention support to students encompassing academic achievement, psychosocial support, and social cohesion
Follow-up is needed at the students’ level using a package to engage them in academic achievements, psychosocial support, and social cohesion activities. Nataf3al’s approach includes working with students through the implementation of Ana Aqra’s Quality Teaching and Learning methodology, which teaches students how to organise their studies; the NRC’s Better Learning Programme, which helps students cope with emotional turmoil; and International Alert’s Social Cohesion kit, which focuses on the prevention of violence and the enhancement of the sense of belonging. 7,230 students have benefited from Nataf3al’s complementary approaches to Adapted Retention Support.
5. Teacher training and coaching
Working with the school community includes capacity-building of the teachers, who are at the frontline of protecting children and the quality of teaching that students receive. Nataf3al has offered training to 273 teachers in 2023 and 382 teachers in 2024, who report being able to implement the community school approach. Fifteen teachers working with Ana Aqra also received five coaching sessions to reflect on their practices following the teacher learning circle methodology designed by International Alert. Together with CERD, Alert provides teachers with tools to address bullying and contribute to a welcoming school environment.
The Nataf3al consortium has built a school improvement approach based on the collaboration between WASH, education and psychosocial support to pilot the school community model. Based on the results of an action research, the model is already helping alleviate the struggles that children in Lebanon are going through.
