What problem does the idea help to solve and how does your solution work? (2,000 characters maximum)

Our Journey to Healing highlights the experience of a child as they progress through the Rainbow of Education curriculum. They will learn the essential skills of Harmony, Emotional Regulation, Compassion, Peacebuilding, Expression, and Capacity Building as they create resilience within themselves and their diverse neighbors.

Geography of focus (500 characters)

Building Bridges: What bridge does your idea build between people on the move and neighbors towards a shared future of stability and promise? (500 characters)

What human need is your idea solving for? (1,000 characters)

What will be different within the community of focus as a result of implementing your idea? (1,000 characters)

What is the inspiration behind your idea? (1,000 characters)

Describe the dynamics of the community in which the idea is to be implemented. (1,000 characters)

Conducting a teacher training in Lebanon in 2018. These local women from the refugee and host community then implemented the Rainbow of Education with 400 children residing in the Beqaa Valley. An additional benefit of our programs is that they empower local women from different backgrounds to develop their own sense of agency, in community with other women, as they lead children through the process of healing.

How does your idea leverage and empower community strengths and assets to help create an environment for success? (1,000 characters)

Children work together to create a tree as part of the Rainbow of Education curriculum (Turkish Rainbow Program). We focus on our roots to remind the children of their unique and special heritage, which roots them in their own beliefs and values. We emphasize the importance of unity as each root becomes part of a larger tree of shared values and beliefs.

What other partners or stakeholders will work alongside you in implementing the idea, if any? (1,000 characters)

What part of the displacement journey is your solution addressing

• Being on the move, crossing borders, and/or temporarily settled

Tell us how you'd describe the type of innovation you are proposing

• Service: A new or enhanced service that creates value for end beneficiaries

Idea Proposal Stage

• Early Adoption: We have completed a pilot and analyzed the impact of that pilot on the intended users of the idea. I have proof of user uptake (i.e. 16% to 49% of the target population or 1,000 to 50,000 users).

Group or Organization Name

Tell us more about your group or organization [or lived experience as a displaced person?] (1000 characters)

Website URL:

Type of submitter

• We are a registered Non-Profit Organization

Organization Headquarters: Country

Organization Headquarters: City / State

In preparation for expert feedback: What are three unanswered questions or challenges that you could use support on in these categories? These questions will be answered directly by experts matched specifically to your idea. (600 characters)

Did you use the resources offered during the Improve Phase (mentorship, expert feedback, community research)? (2000 characters)

We were able to speak with our mentor, Kinda, and received constructive feedback from the expert, Maryan, helping us to create next steps for our program and its implementation in Lebanon. First, we plan to address the issues that arise from our Train-the-Trainer model, namely low retention rate of teachers and conceptual meaning lost in translation. Second, they suggested to solidify a pathway from non-formal to formal or vocational training that would ensure future employability, as well as a referral system to organizations that are better equipped to handle more vulnerable cases. Third, in regard to program evaluation that includes children, it is critical to record observations made by both the teachers and the community. Taking their feedback into account, allows for a more comprehensive overview of our program’s impact on their emotional and behavioral changes. Lastly, the experts were able to follow-up on this point and suggest that we create a toolkit with each community, as we can highlight their specific needs. The experts also suggested we hold an orientation for trainees, trainers and volunteers. By providing a space for trainers to come together to find common ground, we not only provide the necessary skill sets needed, but create a community of practice. With this expert advice, we will further emphasize the importance of community building in our trainings, and share the toolkit with local organizations on the ground. Through the process of working with various experts and mentors, we challenged ourselves to best meet the specific needs of each community we look to work with.

In what ways would potential BridgeBuilder funds allow you to pursue your idea that other funding opportunities have not? (1000 characters)

By working with mentors who understand the variables of education in protracted conflict or crisis, we can achieve insights and multi-year funding that aligns with human cycles to attain overall wellbeing. This grant will enable us to integrate mentor and expert feedback to scale and enhance our impact in Lebanon. With proper funds, we can increase our in-country partnerships, conduct large-scale trainings, and conduct evaluation while in the field. This maximizes our static program costs, providing the largest impact possible, and enables us to regularly gather community feedback. We could provide increased facilitator development by employing an in-country coordinator to liaise with the community and partner organizations; continued facilitator development could assist in teacher retention. Funds will enable us to mitigate the issue of our programs’ conceptual meanings being lost in translation, whether through language or information dissemination.

What aspects or proportion of the overall idea would potential BridgeBuilder funds primarily support? (1000 characters)

Our programs are running in Lebanon until December 2019. The funds would be used to continue and scale our efforts to reach more children in untapped areas. 25% of funds would go into training the local organizations, the teachers/facilitators, as well as the research and development to take into account community involvement and needs. 20% will go to teacher stipends and additional teacher support. 10% of the funds would go into quality translation and interpretation. Translating our materials into Arabic and French would ensure the curriculum’s integrity across languages. 25% of funds would go into high quality and reasonably priced supplies for the child friendly safe spaces. 20% of funds would be used to implement proper impact and assessment evaluations of programming, content, and methodology for reporting. Assuming reasonable shared costs of facilities and teacher stipends with partners, we would need roughly $185-190K. 

What are the key steps or activities for your idea for implementation in the next 1-3 years? (1000 characters)

In the next 1-3 years, we hope to work more closely with the individual communities throughout Lebanon with which we work to identify local leaders and potential mental health organization partners, translate materials into Arabic, and develop improved evaluation tools with experts. We would conduct trainings and then follow-up with a one week observation of teachers in practice. During the observation period, a potential local leader or teacher that could become the person in charge of training the trainers in-country would be identified. After consulting with our local partner, we would identify possible organizations to whom we can refer students with particular acute mental health needs; upon solidifying partnerships, we would train our in-country coordinator to liaise and coordinate with this mental health organization. We would also work with Translators Without Borders to ensure high quality translation of our materials.

What will community-level impact look like over the timeframe of your idea? How will you determine whether or not you have achieved that impact? And what outstanding questions do you still have? (1000 characters)

IMPACT: By 2022, we aim to scale our Rainbow of Education programs in Lebanon to reach approximately 10,000 children, training 500 teachers/facilitators, and capacity building of at least 7 local organizations. 

MEASUREMENT: We used our customized impact assessment plan, comprised of emoji-based pre and post surveys for students, parents, and facilitators. Along with teacher observations, this assessment will measure any improvement in cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies. The indicators include self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills, self-management, responsible decision making, optimistic thinking, and goal directed behavior, the number of students reached and track key indicators. 

QUESTION: As we would like to include individuals from the refugee population to be our teachers, how do we instil the importance of self-care so they can perform at optimal levels while delivering key concepts to the children they teach?

Describe the individual or team that will implement this idea (if a partnership, please explain breakdown of roles and responsibilities for each entity). (1000 characters)

To be a sustainable program we continually seek to establish local partners across the region that can provide support and share costs to cover facilities and teachers. Our current partners include multiple organizations that have contributed to our Rainbow Curricula such as Urban Yoga Foundation, Mission Be, FJK Dance, etc. Our local Lebanese partners are the Lebanese Organization for Studies & Training (LOST), but we aspire to collaborate with more organizations that include Malak, Teach for Lebanon, UNICEF Lebanon, Ana Aqra, and beyond. With this grant, we will be able to hire a local coordinator, serving as our in-country coordinator, overseeing the program and being the primary liaison with our local partner organizations and NY headquarters. This individual selected from the refugee population, will be identified for having excelled during their training. They will report to specific contacts as shown in the organizational chart attached.

Lastly, how did you apply new learnings to your idea? (1000 characters)

While initial programs were created from community feedback and conversations with refugee children, we recognize our biases and thus find speaking with our local partners, the parents, and the host community key to understanding the regional dynamics that often go unacknowledged. Our local partners expressed the need for increased access to facilitator development and training videos which was something we would have never thought to do. They would like additional trainings and videos addressing curriculum content, resources and activities, and methods for dealing with issues of class management. This is a simple addition that we can include during the training framework, and provide through our YouTube Channel as suggested. Through their feedback on the curriculum we learned that yoga and mindfulness were much better received than dance, as such, we can alter the content to reflect more engaging lesson plans for the children and the community.