Mobile and Trauma-informed: Innovative Strategies in Refugee Education
As part of bringing new projects onboard at NeedsList, we always schedule a call to meet the people behind the lists. A few weeks ago, I Skyped with Belle in her hotel room in Northern Greece. After just a few minutes, I was intrigued. This woman runs an alpaca farm, fosters children, and has launched a mobile, trauma-informed education non-profit for children in refugee camps in Greece! But what really blew my mind is the fact that between the time Belle posted her list and the time we met, she had already had a key need met through NeedsList. Read all about it in today’s profile on Belle Sweeney and The Schoolbox Project.
The Schoolbox Project’s mobile, solar-powered schoolhouses operate out of converted shipping containers that can be transported to where they are needed within a few days, fully stocked with supplies.
Executive Director Belle Sweeney founded the project after taking several trips to Greece as an independent volunteer. The concept, like many innovations, emerged somewhat serendipitously. After several days of trying to set up a child friendly space using a pop-up tent, the culture of scarcity repeatedly proved to be too powerful. The tent and supplies would disappear every single day, and Belle would have to start over from scratch.
“I decided to take a cab out to a shipping yard in Aspropyrgos and rent my own shipping container. Later the same day it was delivered, the container was painted with a mural, full of supplies and volunteers were running lessons and activities. I realized that this approach may have a greater potential.”
Sweeney says that given the changing nature of the refugee crisis, “All our responders must be nimble, mobile and responsive to the widely varying cultures and challenges found in each camp.”
Sweeney, from Sebastopol, California, travels to Greece every few months.
“When I’m back home, I live, eat, breathe, sleep the project the rest of the time.”
The Schoolbox Project has an administrative team of seven. Each on-the-ground location has a program director and a rotating team of volunteers.
“We try to have one volunteer per 10 children, but each location varies widely with needs,” she says.
“Do the best you can with what you’ve got”
The project’s volunteers come from around the world. They go through specialized training on how to work with children who have been through trauma and are living in a camp environment. They are also trained to be watchdogs for vulnerable children and unaccompanied minors that may otherwise slip through the cracks.
Children in the programs are never excluded or punished for difficult behavior or for disabilities. They are given one-on-one support at school and at home — whether it’s a tent, sidewalk or squat — to promote full inclusion and healing and to prevent further traumatization.
“As an experienced emergency foster mother in the U.S., I had to work hard to let go of the rigid and rigorous child protection standards enforced at home,” says Sweeney. “I had to learn to adapt to the ‘do the best with what you’ve got’ approach that is necessary in a camp environment.”
Sweeney says that trauma doesn’t stop when children get to the camps, where they continue to be exposed to a multitude of risks.
“But after all they have endured on their journey, we at least expect to be able to keep them alive in an alleged place of refuge. Tragically, sometimes, we can’t. We recently lost a two-year-old boy who drowned in an open body of water near our program. An incredible volunteer teacher worked for nearly 30 minutes to try to resuscitate him as the other children watched. She was trained in CPR but many volunteers are not.”
NeedsList provides the right equipment at the right time
What became obvious following that tragedy was that having an automated external defibrillator (AED) on hand could have given the child a better chance of surviving.
Sweeney had seen other NGOs in Greece use NeedsList and decided to create a list herself, requesting an AED in Lesvos. Within a few days, staff at Starfish Foundation, also on Lesvos, responded to the need online. They contacted Belle directly, confirming that they had an extra AED in their warehouse and making it available to the Schoolbox Project.
“Having an AED in every location, and making sure all volunteers know where it is, can and will save lives,” Sweeney says. “Even if the person is not trained in CPR, an AED actually walks you through instructions on how to use it in real time. We will never operate without one of these again.”
Sweeney was impressed by the efficiency of NeedsList.
“We were able to fill this need within just one week, by someone in close proximity to our location.”
She and her team will continue to post needs for other priority items such as school, art and music supplies, and sports and outdoor play.
An MIT-recognized solution
The Schoolbox Project was recently recognized as a ‘Solver’, by Solve, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) community platform whose mission is to discover, evaluate, and advance solutions to global challenges.
“We submitted The Schoolbox Project model, focusing on trauma-informed care, and made it to the semifinals out of hundreds of submissions,” says Sweeney. “We were then invited to pitch our concept in New York City at the United Nations headquarters, and we were unanimously selected as a ‘Solver.’
Belle will return in May to participate in Solve’s annual flagship event Solve at MIT.
This means that Solve takes us under their wing and provides ongoing support for development, including funding, strategy advice, and technology. So I will go back to MIT in May to participate in their first ‘Solve Workshops.’”
NeedsList will also be working with Solve in the coming months to introduce other Solvers, like The SchoolBox Project, to our platform. We’re thrilled to work with innovators like Belle and her team — people who are creatively using the resources on-hand, and making a difference for children and families fleeing war.
