Impact Report 2020
Contents A Letter from our Founder
1
Quality Education For All
2
2020: Snapshot of our Achievements
4
The Impact of Covid-19 on BF and Our Beneficiaries
6
Spotlight on Colombia
8
Spotlight on South Africa
10
Spotlight on Lebanon
12
Our Future Hopes
14
Our Partners
16
A Letter from our Founder It is impossible to summarise the uniqueness of 2020 in a single page. Peering through one lens, I saw a world enabled by technology unite around one subject: Covid-19. National league tables of cases and death, discourse and debates concerning world health policies and economic management, as well as international collaborations between education bodies and leading research organisations, united in their defence to find a vaccination. From another lens, I saw the world lose focus on those already living with disadvantage: the poorest have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19, in terms of ill-health, lack of food, water, healthcare and jobs. When schools closed, daily meals to children stopped as did their education. For our most disadvantaged children, the pandemic profoundly highlighted technology poverty and the digital divide between nations. According to the United Nations, Covid-19 created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting 1.6 billion learners, wiping out decades of education progress to children in developing nations, and illuminating the disparity and inequalities between the developed and developing world. The education gap, during this period, has not only increased, it has been predicted that 23.8 million children (pre-primary to tertiary) may drop out or have no further access to schools in 2021, due to Covid-19’s economic impact on education systems. As in all crises, hope and innovation emerges and this was true of our past year. I am proud of our achievements; 100% of our schools received sanitation packs and training, we made 6,048 reusable masks for children and teachers, as well as school kitchen staff to ensure children’s lunches (their critical one meal a day) were made safely. We wrote, printed and distributed
22,600 academic booklets and developed 1,267 playdough curriculum kits to support homeschooling. We increased our literacy programme significantly making available 4 times more books to promote reading and we moved our teacher-training online: in Lebanon alone 1,320 teachers attended the 22 sessions we offered to support their professional development. Whether it be online teacher training, sim cards to enable access to e-Scuela in Colombia, breakfast broadcasts and Virtual Maths Programmes in South Africa or launching our Tented School in Lebanon, I am also struck by an increased sense of solidarity – the sharing of problems and solutions with partners and communities - we couldn’t have achieved what we did this year, without you - I am truly grateful for those who shared our ambitions and collaborated with us. As the year comes to a close, we look forward with hope to 2021 with renewed energy, determination and ambition to reach as many schools, communities and disadvantaged children as possible, providing quality education for all.
Sebastien Breteau
The Breteau Foundation 2020 Annual Report
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Quality Education For All Quality Education for All is what we believe makes a difference; the high quality technologies we install in schools, the carefully designed and selected resources we deploy, and the time we give to teachers to develop their digital confidence and skills. This past seven years of working across 10 countries has taught us that as agents of change, on a mission to improve the life chances of the world’s most disadvantaged children, we must be agile to the environments we work in because quality education for all, means delivering to the needs of all the children we serve. This year, as schools shut their doors due to Covid-19, we experienced full-scale disruption to our usual operations, just like so many other organisations. However, we also observed first-hand, the instant unfolding of a parallel catastrophe: a disconnection from technology exacerbating the education gap and wiping out several decades of education progress of children in the developing world. In a statement by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres (June 2020), he noted technology as central to almost every aspect of the response to the pandemic, from vaccine research, to e-commerce, online learning models and tools, all of which enabled hundreds of millions of people to work and study from home. But he also noted that the digital divide is the new face of inequality, and reinforces social and economic disadvantages suffered by those born into poverty, women and girls, people with disabilities, and minorities of all kinds. At the Breteau Foundation, we know from experience that the teachers and children we typically support, have been disproportionately and negatively impacted by Covid-19, due to their lack of technology and connectivity. While healthcare systems rightly became the critical focus during the pandemic, unfortunately, education systems not only took a back step, but education stopped completely, and nine months on, children in some of the places we work, have not yet recommenced schooling. In the absence of schools, our services to schools are more critical than ever – technology can help to continue and advance children’s education but importantly, in the current crisis, bridge the digital divide that is so desperately needed for quality education for all.
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The Breteau Foundation 2020 Annual Report
3
2020: Snapshot of our Achievements
Despite Covid-19 and major disruption, we are proud of our flexibility, our adaptability and our results.
BF Programme Global Highlights
10
Countries
21315 Students
19 Covid-19 initiatives
“Thanks to the creativity and flexibility of the BF’s team, our school
618
pupils have been
Teachers
able to continue
2475
with a high standard
Tablets
The Tented School Opened its doors to Refugee children in Lebanon
of education whilst schools remained
Over
Apps used world wide
113
Schools
Are part of the BF network
Our network of schools South Africa Colombia Sri Lanka Myanmar UK Ivory Coast Laos Lebanon Ethiopia Dominican Republic
4
5 Years In Colombia
Of children in DR don’t have access to technology
of strong partnerships
Agree technology makes subjects more interesting
Juan Santander Gil, Primary Teacher, Colombia
75%
Years
90% Students
closed.”
114
34
Developed globally
44%
8000
School packs
Improvement in the digital skills of the caretaker and teachers that accompany the students in the Cambiando el Chip programme
Were brought to children in Lebanon thanks to the Mobile Bus
100%
2020
Of schools received sanitation kits
Sanitation kits delivered
100%
266
Attendance in Colombia’s e-Scuela - online school
Parents who joined the Breakfast Broadcast Club
100%
1/5
Of students attending the Math Virtual School showed high progress
Participation Cambiando el Chip programme
307
School Sanitation Training
22600 Printed Academic Packs
17
Weeks of Breakfast Broadcast for parents and teachers
1267 Literacy Playdough Packs
The Breteau Foundation 2020 Annual Report
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The Impact of Covid-19 on BF and Our Beneficiaries The Breteau Foundation’s core delivery is based on the four pillars within our Theory of Change model:Hardware + Educational content + Teacher-training + Senior leadership development to enable worldwide improvement of children’s academic engagement. Even though it is several years since we developed our Theory of Change, this model has served us well, as we have expanded to new countries and increased our reach, year-on-year to schools, teachers and children. Our belief backed by both our research and experience suggests that children’s technology experience is directly linked to the confidence and expertise of the teacher and a school’s readiness to embrace digital transformation. We have seen that children’s education overall, in particular their access to quality and varied content in all subjects, as well as their experience and enjoyment of learning has been enriched by technology. Therefore, an integral part of our core delivery model involves bringing schools together for ‘cluster’ training workshops but also working side-by-side teachers in classrooms. This has been attributed to our success in building capability for our end goal: whole-school digital transformation and autonomisation in 2 years.
Our Theory of Change model: Global support embedded in local contexts
Relevant quality educational content We give teachers and learners access to high quality educational content including digital apps and needs based resources.
Equitable access to educational technology We believe in educational technology for all. We enhance learning environments with robust digital educational toolkits.
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Improve academic engagement of disadvantaged children worldwide
Our programmes are relevant and bespoke to local environments. Our in-country education experts ensure that the resources we provide are mapped to national curricula and local languages.
Skilled and empowered teachers We provide strategic support and comprehensive teacher training to develop confident and innovative teacher champions.
But then Covid-19 happened... Schools closed globally and closed quickly. No longer was it possible for us to carry out our existing model in the same way. Suddenly our field teams who were in schools 60% or more of their time, couldn’t visit. We could no longer run our face-to-face training sessions and the 3000 tablets that were no longer able to be used in schools were inventoried and indefinitely locked into safe storage units. Our educational content linked to the tablets had to be adapted, and in many cases had to be completely recreated for use without technology. Our education expertise and deep understanding of the needs of children and their communities where we work, expedited our ability to offer support in the most valuable way.
We designed, printed and
distributed education content to children at home addressing information poverty, due to lack of technology.
Established a tablet-lending library giving children from partner schools access to digital resources
Our work with existing partners was strengthened and we formed new partnerships to collaboratively navigate additional challenges and provide support beyond education. As a result, we expanded our core activities to provide
Provided data packs to aid access to digital resources to those hindered by connectivity costs
Patients in hospital with computer tablets to help them communicate with their families
Switched to online training to
Parents with training and data to
support teachers adapt their practices through use of technology.
help them home school
Reusable masks for school staff helping to provide much needed food for children
Those that we support are amongst the 16% (1.2 billion) of the world’s population who have little or no access to electricity, whose families use mobile phone technology that the developed world used a decade ago, who are often unable to access cheap connectivity options, and who are amongst the 31% (463 million) of school children who cannot access remote learning due to lack of technology assets at home.
The Breteau Foundation 2020 Annual Report
Sanitation products to aid health and safety
Children’s clothing supplies and baby products for mothers with small children.
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Spotlight on Colombia Of all our project locations, Colombia experienced the longest period (seven consecutive months) of school closures, due to Covid-19. As the pandemic rose towards a million cases (a third in Bogota, where we work with partner schools), so did human rights adversities, the exploitation and abuse of children, diminished and broken peace processes and unemployment which escalated between 20 - 28%. Recovery in Colombia, as described by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, will require an additional investment of 10% of the national budget. Education has long been the Government’s strategy to raise Colombia out of the depths of poverty and violence. But tragically, the Covid-19 crisis has stalled these plans and the education recovery gap has widened because 96% of municipal schools failed to implement virtual education, due to over 50% of students having no access to computers or internet (FECODE). As time went on, tens of thousands of children were academically cut-off and deprived of the opportunity to learn. This negatively impacted children’s wellbeing. As evidenced in research by the Colombian Institute of Neuroscience, 88% of appoximately 1,000 children assessed in the research sample, were found to be suffering from mental ill-health and behavioural issues, due to the impacts of the pandemic.
100% of our BF schools remain closed in Latin America and children have been without formal schooling for 7 consecutive months.
Working on the ground, we observed the challenges unfold alongside anxious and overworked teachers who required rapid technology training and support. With great haste we diverted our training online to 168 teachers, donated 70 data sim cards to families and developed and distributed 3,937 resource packs, reaching 64% of the 6,072 children that we typically support in schools. From this point onwards, a new culture had formed within our services: at great speed, ideas were incubated, collaborations created, new services delivered and impacts accomplished.
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Government declares State Of Emergency Government orders the closure of all education institutions.
Schools Holidays
The mid-year school h are brought forward t the impact on the sch academic year.
A
March 16 - 27 March 12
March 30 - April 21
Emergency Education Planning School directors and teachers plan pedagogical activities for homeschooling
Our Initiatives
holidays to reduce hool
Government orders schools to reopen
Youtube & Soapbox Teacher Training
While the order was made, 64,5% of schools refused to start stating that they will reopen in 2021.
We trained 1/3 of our teachers, as well as parents/carers on how to use content platforms such as Khan Academy, Brain Pop, IXL Twinkl, Fiction Express and DoodleMaths.
April 21 June
December
Online Learning Commences Remote learning has started for all students in Latin America.
E-scuela Initiative We set up distance learning capability and donated literacy and numeracy app licences to near 300 children in order to maintain their right to an education.
Cambiando el Chip Programme We donated more than 70 SimCards to teachers and families giving access to digital content. Teachers - 100% embraced the opportunity and used the access to developed resources Children - we saw 100% engagement in their access to learning content and we expect there will be no school dropouts amongst this cohort Parents - we gained 100% parent participation in an online humanitarian aid management course. By up-skilling community members and providing vital information, we were able to support communities mitigate the spread of the virus and prepare for future lockdowns.
Playdough Project We distributed kits to 2,000 children living offline. The packs contained playdough, and an aligned creative curriculum booklet to support home learning in literacy and numeracy.
Academic Packs We supported children’s learning in numeracy, literacy and ESL by printing and distributing 2000 booklets.
Zoom-Training We sprung into action and delivered our usual teacher training programme online providing teachers with their continuing professional development.
Ni un Paso Atrás (No Step Back) Programme
Student video: Testimonial of Jeronimo Trujillo, 3rd Grade student at Primary School Gimansio Santander, Colombia
The Breteau Foundation 2020 Annual Report
We partnered with Enséñanos a Creer to reach 288 students challenged by socio-emotional, logical-mathematical, comprehension and textual production skills with the aim to prevent school dropout rates. The 4 month programme gives children tablet technology, software, workbooks and academic facilitators which support their academic engagement, until students are able to enroll in the 2021 school year.
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Spotlight on South Africa To fight the spread of Covid-19 and buy time to develop and implement a long term response, on March 15, President Ramaphosa declared a National State of Disaster. This was followed by a 3-week national ‘stay-athome’ (lockdown) order, that subsequently extended to 5 weeks to the end of April. In all, schools were closed for 4.5 months, between March and July, and then only operated part-time from late August to December. Studies undertaken since this time (by Elsevier), clearly show the disproportionate and negative impact on South Africa’s poorest including those who suffer low education attainment. For families dependent on weekly earnings, lockdown threatened food security and increased health insecurities because they were confronted with the choice to illegally seek work to prevent starvation, while accepting the risk of becoming infected. School closures meant no access to the onemeal-a-day policy for the most disadvantaged children, which in turn, made home education, completely impossible. With no benefits provided, community crises, violence and crime ensued. Meanwhile, teachers’ pay continued, and evidence now shows that this ultimately reduced their incentive for teachers to innovate their practice in order to reach, promote and support families to home-school. When schools reopened (part-time), there was no recovery curriculum developed by the Ministry of Education (MOE), causing additional pressures on teaching and learning and unfair expectations on children. At the same time, it was a great relief to families when schools once again provided meals to children.
Partner video: Testimonial video of Charles George, Head of Home of Compassion Ministries, South Africa
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President orders schools to close
Pre
Schools close from 18th of March to July of 6th.
Sch to 2
July 6 March 18
July 27
President announces schools to reopen
School directors and teachers pedagogical activities for hom
Our Initiatives In contrast and in the face of adversity, our teams rallied with school leadership and teachers and created new partners to buck the catastrophic trends emerging. We planned initiatives and worked alongside locals to navigate community contexts, to support access to resources of all kinds, and to support with the distribution of our materials.
esident orders schools to close
hools close from 27th of July 21st of August.
August 24
Playdough Curriculum December
7
s
President order schools to reopen From the 24th of August to December students will attend part time (2,5 days per week).
s plan meschooling.
The Playdough Curriculum came from Mindjoy.com who have created the Playdough Curriculum, a series of literacy, numeracy and creative activities, all made with playdough. These work packets were created for children in offline communities during school closures.
Virtual Math School Personalised progress tracking app (DoodleMaths) for children aged 4-14 were provided directly to parents to download and use in the home.
10572 Students reached
307
Teachers reached
Academic Work Packages Work booklets covering all subjects were distributed to children in remote communities for children in Grade 2 - 5.
Tablets Donation
25
1169
70
16300
Schools reached
Education apps used
307
Staff reached with sanitation training
The Breteau Foundation 2020 Annual Report
Tablets deployed
School packs delivered
100%
of schools received sanitation kits
We donated tablets to aid communications between hospital patients and their families who were unable to visit due to Covid-19 enforced restrictions. The technology doubled their usage value by enabling meetings to happen between doctors and families.
Breakfast Broadcast Club The Breakfast Broadcast Club was an alternative communication method for teachers and parents to access quality resources for homeschooling. This covered cross curricular activities and mixed aged resources.
Sanitation kits We developed a video on the importance of sanitation and delivered 307 training sessions to schools, so when schools reopened they could safely share and use the tablets. 100% of our schools implemented this learning.
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Spotlight on Lebanon Lockdown meant we had to pause the Breteau Foundation Tent School, stop our Education Bus, and pause our services to the 14 formal and informal schools, the 122 teachers and 4,354 students we support. Those with connectivity were offered support online, but for the disadvantaged children we serve, this was impossible. The children we support typically live with minimal or no technology and connectivity, and it is often unaffordable. We found teachers with no professional development to cope with Covid-19 changes, so we commenced training programmes online to build remote-working confidence. One teacher stated, “we felt that we had been left behind. The Breteau Foundation were the only NGO providing training.” Children were also emotionally affected by the difficult living conditions, by home-life stresses caused by parents losing their jobs, and by the lack of socialisation opportunities – schools to many children, are their only safe and social space from home. Fast-forward to the 4th of August and the Beirut explosion. This single shocking event created wider devastation on Lebanon’s poorest, causing additional political upheaval and increased national insecurities. Health services were refocused to the disaster, annual wheat and other food supplies were damaged and fuel restricted, causing food and energy prices to escalate. In some areas, electricity was only available for 2-4 hours per day, worsening the conditions in tent settlements. Despite all of this chaos across Lebanon, our field teams assessed risks and made the decision to continue. We focussed our support on various initiatives including providing 8,000 education packs to settlement communities. Then on the 6th of October we launched our Tent School and opened its doors to 65% of the children registered on our roll to respect social distancing regulations. This was a huge relief and a joyous moment, in advance of some of the national schools returning mid October.
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Government announces national school closures Covid-19 stops our Education Bus and our support to partners.
Ma
Sch
April 18 February 28
Augus
Breteau Foundation re-commences support
Education Bus Programme resta with the distribution of educatio
Our Initiatives
ajor Explosion
Working with communities we developed and implemented the following initiatives:
hools remain closed.
October 14
December
st 4
Schools reopen
arts along on booklets.
Some national schools temporarily open. The Breteau Foundation launches the opening of the Tented school.
Qisas 3asafeer Platform We assisted three of our schools, who have access to some connectivity (equating to 750 students in total) gain access to a learning platform.
Hygiene Kits We coordinated 4000 kits of wet-wipes, antibacterial hand-gel, liquid sterilizers and soaps to settlement community families.
Breteau Foundation Academic Booklets
100%
Of teachers attended BF online workshops
4000
Hygiene kits distributed
8000
School packs delivered
We developed and distributed 8000 booklets aligned with the national curriculum for early years, Grades 1, 2 and 3 covering numeracy, Arabic and English literacy. All information packs included up-to-date Covid-19 guidelines to promote health and safety practice.
Teacher Training We quickly diverted our core training online but also developed new training courses to support those teachers with very low digital skills unable to quickly switch to working online. We successfully delivered 22 sessions to 130 teachers and our support empowered teachers in their teaching practice.
Parents Whatsapp We set up and coordinated a Whatsapp group of 160 parents and provided them with tips, resources links and videos to support home learning. We coordinated regular updates to this group for 4.5 months.
Reusable Masks for Refugees Parent video: Testimonial of Mrs El Smaili, mother of Ahmad and Omar, Lebanon
The Breteau Foundation 2020 Annual Report
We provided 600 masks to children living in settlements known to us through our Education Bus and Tent School.
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Future Hopes In 2021, the Breteau Foundation will focus on 5 different initiatives to support the expansion of our work;
Homeschooling Support We will provide tablet technology and educational content, reaching children whose education has been and continues to be hindered by lockdown measures causing school closures. We will particularly target those whose development has been held back and experienced ‘education loss’ as a result of Covid-19.
Teacher & Caregivers Remote Learning We will extend our reach to teachers beyond our current network. By providing teachers and caregivers with unscheduled professional development, they will be able to flex their own learning during connectivity peak times, when schools are closed and when time permits.
Environmental Education We will expand into environmental education aimed at schools and learners globally. Through film and workshops, we will focus on the problems and solutions of plastic in our environment and inspire children to become changemakers in the fight against plastic.
Connectivity We will tackle technology poverty and level the playing field by providing connectivity so that disadvantaged children can be reached by their schools and teachers (during periods of school closures), and rightfully access their education online.
Breteau Foundation Primary School in Lebanon We will build our first school to educate disadvantaged children, many of whom will derive from Syrian refugee settlements and provide work opportunities to local Lebanese and Syrian people.
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The Breteau Foundation 2020 Annual Report
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Our Partners We would like to thank all of our amazing partners this year for persisting in an unpredictable and challenging environment and prioritising the education of our children. From school partners, senior leaders, teachers and parents to our partnerships with content and app providers, technology companies to grassroots organisations, we celebrate the wonderful work and outcomes we have achieved together. All of our partners play an important role in the Breteau Foundation and we hope we can continue to collaborate with your passion, expertise and generosity in 2021.
Ghazzi Elementary Public School
16
Bar Elias Public School
Joyful Al Mansoura