World-Class Education 4 Refugee Children

I am the Co-founder of Still I Rise. We provide world-class education to refugee children in Syria, Turkey, Greece and Kenya.

At 20, I left my hometown in North Italy to volunteer at an orphanage in India. I was supposed to stay for three months, but ended up staying for four years. Here I started a fund to send the boys I worked with to school and university. I believe education is the key to change the future of the most disadvantaged.

When I got back from India, I started volunteering on Samos island, Greece, in one of the most overcrowded refugee camps in Europe. Here we started Still I Rise. We opened Mazì, our first school for refugee children. 

After two years of Mazì, we're now expanding. We are opening the world’s first international school for refugee children.

Millions of refugee children lack access to education. Children living in refugee camps face multiple challenges to their safety and security, with many ending up in child labour. 

We provide high quality, world-class education and a safe space for refugee children across the world. 

We operate youth centres in Greece and Syria for children aged 12-17. We've already seen the difference our centres have made in the lives of the children we serve and we're expanding our model by launching international schools in Kenya and Turkey. 

Students will go through six years of education and receive an internationally recognised diploma for free. If our graduates are displaced again, they'll be able to access higher education anywhere in the world. 

Education of refugee children is a fundamental right and extremely important for their protection, integration and empowerment. By elevating the world's forgotten children, we are ensuring equal opportunities for children worldwide.

'The proportion of refugees enrolled in secondary
education is more than two-thirds lower than the
level for non-refugees – 24%, compared to
the global rate of 84%. 
The effect is devastating. Without the stepping
stone of secondary school, progress made over
the past year will be short-lived, and the futures of
millions of refugee children will be thrown away.' - UNCHR

Samos: The refugee camp was built for 700 refugees, but currently over 7000 live there. 2000 are children. 

Oftentimes, families are stuck in Samos for up to 2 years. Violence is common and children have been out of school for years. 

Gaziantep: Turkey is the largest refugee host country in the world with 3.6 million refugees. Gaziantep has 500,000 refugees, 200,000 are children. Average attendance in secondary school among refugees is 10%. 

Nairobi: Kenya hosts over 400,000 refugees. 16% of refugees reside in urban areas (mainly Nairobi), alongside 18,500 stateless persons.

Among the refugee population in Kenya, over half are children (4-18 years). Almost half of school-age refugees are still out of school. 

Syria: Al-dana hosts 840,000 refugees, 58% are children.

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Barriers to school enrollment include supply issues and socio-economic factors, cultural norms and traditions, child labour and early marriage.

We operate two educational models. The model we choose depends on local laws: 

1. Youth Centres (Greece & Syria): 

Each centre provides education and psycho-social support for 150 children aged 12-17, who are waiting to start formal education. We prioritise unaccompanied minors, especially girls. 

Our centres are a transition place where children learn to assimilate into a school environment, learn English and the local language in addition to recreational activities such as art and music.

The centres are a safe place where children have a normal routine and staff focused on their specific needs. Children continue to grow and maintain their social skills and habits in order to facilitate a path towards re-enrolling in formal schooling.

Each center doubles as a distribution center where food and water is available to the children. 

2. International Schools (Turkey & Kenya):

Our schools provide six years of secondary education and psycho-social support to 150 of the most vulnerable refugee children for free. Upon graduation, they receive an internationally recognised diploma and top graduates will have their further education sponsored by Still I Rise. 

Our model can be easily replicated and the partnership with our international diploma provider ensures quality control and legitimacy. 

We work with refugee children. We work with the most destitute and disadvantaged people on earth. We believe that education is a unique tool to empower their life.

Our programs aim to provide those children with essential, high-quality tools that are needed to develop a successful life plan.

In our youth centres, we fill the gap left by governments and institutions by providing emergency education. We promote English learning and we teach holistic skills that are useful to cultivate passions, interest and curiosity for education. Our unique educational model takes a human-centred approach and factors in the life experiences of refugee children. Within months, our model allows children to learn English, begin recovery from trauma and regain the joy of living after conflict. We believe in revolutionizing education to bring about a better world for all children.

Our international school aims to change the world. We are offering world-class education to children who would never have this opportunity in their life. With our diploma our children will access university and academic careers and they will become leaders in their areas, successful human beings, game-changers able to travel, study and empower our world. Displacement will never be an obstacle again.

We believe in the power of education and the positive impact it has on the displaced, the stateless, and the destitute whose right to schooling has been denied. 

We fight to include the poorest children in the educational system and offer them a high quality education originally reserved for the most privileged. We believe that quality education, safety and care are the only and best resources we have to allow these children to reclaim their future. We aim to make youth feel valuable, important and committed.

In 2017 I wanted to lend a helping hand in one of the biggest tragedies of our times - the refugee crisis.

In Samos, Greece, I started volunteering to support asylum seekers trapped in the "hotspot". Here thousands of people wait for years for their application to be processed, and they do so deprived of shelter, proper nutrition, education, healthcare and legal representation. 

To give children some hope, I created an education program. But corruption was running wild among the management of the camp. In spite of my efforts, nothing seemed to change and the wheel of injustice would keep on spinning.

So, together with two other volunteers, Giulia Cicoli and Sarah Ruzek, we founded Still I Rise, our NGO, and opened Mazì, the first education centre for refugee children on Samos island. 

Two years later, Mazì has changed the lives of thousands. 

But the problems of the hotspot remain. Even after we started a criminal case against the authorities and won at the European Court, a youth center was not enough. That's why we decided to step up and open the world's first International School for refugee children. To break the wheel of injustice.

I had a difficult adolescence. I had problems with everyone around me - the authorities, my family, my friends. But the main problem was school. I was bullied, I failed multiple times and I was on the verge of dropping out more times than I can count. I felt worthless, and the school system made sure I wouldn't forget that.

So many children and youth break after the dysfunctional system we call public school rejects them. Most end up forever haunted by the belief of not being enough. 

And if this happens to the so-called normal children, what can the public school system do to kids who are already traumatised and marginalised?

A research paper by UNESCO reveals how education not only changes the lives of underprivileged children, it saves them. Schools can break underprivileged youth, but can also reclaim them from the street and turn their lives around.

I felt abused in the school system, so I made it my life mission to try and make sure no other child would ever feel the way I did back then. The work we do at Still I Rise is to create a new model to make the old one obsolete.

After graduation I went to India for a volunteer experience. I was supposed to stay for three months. I stayed for four years. It changed my life forever. 

There I worked with Dayavu Boy's Home, a non-profit organisation housing orphaned children. I completed university with a major in journalism and also worked with Teach For India. The children I supported and most of all the founder of the orphanage, Joshua, made me the man I am today.

I learnt everything I know about ethical volunteering, justice in a corrupt system and the importance of education for underprivileged children. Joshua took me under his wing and taught me how to manage a non-profit organisation in a complex context such as rural India. If I can manage an organisation across six countries now, I owe it to him.

Once I moved back to Europe and started Still I Rise, I learnt how to best support refugee children through field training, research and most of all the work we do on the ground. Managing our youth centers gave us a unique understanding of the needs and the psychology of refugee children, the intricacies of the asylum system and what child protection systems generally lack.

Expanding our operations from youth centers to International Schools was natural for us. After restoring the rights to education, safety and happiness to migrant children in our centers, we felt ready to give them the best shot we can at life with world-class education and an international diploma. 

In 2019 we moved to Turkey to open our first International School. We took all possible precautions, created a network to support our operations and started working in this unfamiliar context. Despite everything, when the municipality of the district we were working in found out about our project, they decided they wanted in.

Corruption is a major problem in the country. The municipality offered to help at first, but soon that turned into demands, from hiring their own construction company to accepting the teachers they would recommend to out-and-out bribery requests.

We had a choice: accept the so-called protection the municipality was offering, bending to their demands but also open the school swiftly and with no obstacles. Or we could turn them down, face reprisal but also preserve the independence of our project.

We started Still I Rise to counter the corruption of the authorities on Samos, Greece. Independence, transparency and effectiveness are our cornerstones. So we turned the municipality down. It wasn't easy. Our project was delayed by many months. But finally, in March 2020, we opened "Beraber", our school in Turkey.

We were just three volunteers when we started Still I Rise. We grew to 10 when Mazì, our youth center in Greece, became fully operational. Over time our model received praise from the media and we gathered ever growing support to our cause. Then I had the idea of opening international schools around the world, and the organisation changed completely.

My vision of justice through education won everybody over in the team as well as hundred of thousands on the Internet. Why should refugee children settle for the scraps of what normal children normally get? Why can't we offer them a fair chance to rebuild their lives and make the world better for everyone in the process?

Three years later, nearly 50 between staff and volunteers work with Still I Rise to make our vision come true. Thousands of people support us through their donations, feeling like our goal as much ours as it is theirs. And that's why I am confident we will succeed.

When it comes to refugee education, much of the focus is on integrating children into schools after they have settled into a new country. However, this tends to be a Euroc-entric view with the assumption that the system will allocate refugee children and families in a timely manner and that families have reached their happily ever after. But this couldn't be further from the truth. 

The fact is that this system is inherently flawed and there are places in Europe and other countries where refugees, and refugee children especially, do not have a good quality of life or basic human rights. 

There are many reasons for this including the difficulty in overcoming the trauma faced in being displaced, racism, or learning difficulties. For unaccompanied minors, the challenges are doubled.

Our schools and centres are specifically built around the needs of refugee children with long-term education in mind. International diplomas are generally for the most privileged of children, but our model provides this accreditation for free in addition to psycho-social support. No longer will children have to worry about barriers to education as the accreditation will mean that they can study anywhere in the world and feel psychologically safe to do so. 

Education, emotional awareness, and managing trauma are just some of the needs that refugee children require in order to start their new lives in another country. The countries we operate in lack access to education for refugee children and the diplomas received are not necessarily accepted by other insistitutions.   

Our Theory of Change, integrated with Impact Management and Evaluation, allows us to channel efforts and achieve results by fostering real community empowerment. We constantly measure and enhance our educational model, correct inefficiencies and build relationships with our main stakeholders, coming out of self-referential logics. We use a very careful and precise monitoring scheme by monitoring our programs monthly with interim and final evaluations.

In the design phase we focus on the entire results chain composed of outputs, outcomes and impact of a development intervention: the chain is built on the basis of causal logical links accompanied by SMART indicators  with related sources of verification that can allow us to improve the quality of our intervention which is always “result based”.

Our Theory of Change is directly linked to the impact assessment. We work as a team to ensure that, in the outcomes pathway, one action/intervention leads to another until our goals are achieved. Our ToC is the following:

1. The children we serve go on to university and pursue professional careers that let them support their families and make positive contributions to society.
2. Our educational model is adopted by public institutions around the world.
3. Governments change their approach to the refugee crisis and provide dignified settlement to all refugees.

Our goals require a logic strategy:

1) Context Analysis: our intervention has to be an appropriate response to the analysis of the context. We draft and analyse the Problem Tree as well as the Solution Tree.

2) Hypotheses of change: the causal pathway has to be well-mapped in the Theory of Change diagram. Activities, outcomes and outputs are linked and harmonised.

3) Assessment of Evidence

See here for our diagram.

Currently serves 450 people

In one year, 600 people

In five years, 1500 people 

Our short term goals for this year are focused on getting back on our feet and operating our educational model across 4 countries post-COVID. We're launching an e-learning app so that our educational model can be provided to refugees worldwide, with or without internet. This will allow us to continue to provide education in the event that further lockdowns occur or if refugee children are transferred from 'hotspots' such as Samos but cannot continue their education elsewhere. The app will initially be used amongst our students and then rolled out globally. This will be a game-changer as other education apps use a one size fits all approach and our app is specifically made for refugee children who have suffered through trauma and displacement.

Within the next five years, we will launch international schools and youth centres in Latin America, Yemen and/or Somalia, and Italy, in addition to areas in East Asia and across the Middle East with high numbers of refugees. This will be done through continued engagement with our donors who have supported our journey and growth since 2018 and are very much the DNA that makes up Still I Rise. We are also working to diversify our funding sources in order to expand our offering to introduce the first Humanitarian Corridors project in Italy in 2023.

By 2025, the first two cohorts of our international diploma programme will be in their final years towards graduation in Turkey and Kenya - and we can't wait! 

As we are bringing our education model to developing countries around the world, we found out that a major obstacle is not so much in the bureaucracy or in the logistics of a given country, but instead in the integration with the local community.

As Still I Rise we open international schools for refugee and stateless children, a very vulnerable segment of the population, but we do so in places where also locals struggle with poverty, unemployment and illiteracy.

It is often complicated to adapt our education model to foreign countries. At the same time, winning the goodwill of the host community can be  challenging, especially when the service you provide is in high demand among locals, too. 

This may seem just like a cultural barrier, but securing a synchronous relationship with the locals is key to every other aspect that makes or breaks a project.

Having strong and healthy ties with the local community is vital to being perceived as working with within the society as opposed to being seen as an alien. It can help the project financially, technically and culturally. People are just more likely to help you if they see the value in what you bring to the table.

The local community plays a central role especially in a project like ours, where the objective is reconstruction and results start becoming evident in the long-term.

As Still I Rise, we pay great attention to working closely with the local community. Cooperation, respect and understanding of local dynamics are essential whenever we open a new school in a country that is not our own.

That is why, as we approach a new project, we always involve locals from the start. We establish a network with local organizations working in the same sector, we hire a local lawyer and most all we hire a team of local professionals.

Empowering the host community as we empower refugee children is good practice for us. Most of our staff on the ground are recruited locally in order to ensure effectiveness of the program. We also believe that there is no better fit to adapt our education model to the local context than someone who is from there.

We also partner with local NGOs, universities, other schools and government entities to ensure stability and safety of our operations. 

Finally, we reserve a quota of 30% of the seats in each of our schools in developing countries for underprivileged children coming from the local community. This is to give back to the country hosting us, to promote integrating between the refugee community and the local community, and to create harmony within and without our project.

In Greece our main partner is HelpRefugees. We develop together crucial interventions for our beneficiaries and HelpRefugees provide us with funds to run our activities.

In Turkey we partner with Bonyan NGO, a local organisation operating in Turkey and Syria to promote education for refugees. We opened together Beraber, our international school to improve our knowledge of the local context and understand better the needs of the population we serve.

In Kenya we are partner of KANCO, a nationwide cluster for NGOs and NPOs. Through this partnership we aim to enhance and strengthen our local network.

Still I Rise is also working together with YouMeWe, a NPO based in Japan and working worldwide. We cooperate to increase our skills regarding technology and digital opportunities in learning environment. 

Our model fills a gap where the standard education system is unavailable. We do this through 2 educational models: 

1. Relief (Youth Centres): by offering emergency education through our youth centres, we provide an immediate service in the short term.

2. Reconstruction (International Schools): A long term curriculum (7 years) that provides an internationally recognised qualification and eliminates the barrier of entry to higher education across the world. 

Our beneficiaries are between the ages of 10 and 17. Our cohorts are made up of 70% refugees or IDPs and 30% local children. We aim for a 50/50 ratio of boys and girls and prioritise the most vulnerable (e.g. disabled, unaccompanied children, children with single parents)

By providing an education-based solution to the refugee crisis, we are carving the future of a lost generation, one child at a time. Our independence as an NGO also allows us to challenge norms and engage in advocacy. 

We have multiple revenue streams that cover our operational costs and we keep our costs low by providing fair salaries depending on the country of operation. We do not pay overly high salaries which are often ripe in the non-profit world. Our team works with us because they love what we do and not because of a huge package. 

In 2019, 97.8% of our donations were invested into our on-the-ground projects.

Each school and youth centre costs between €160k to €200k per year which covers all operational and overhead costs. By keeping our costs consistent, it helps us plan for the long-term and determine how many schools and centres we can open.

Our revenue will continue to include the following: 

• Individual Donations
  • For donors who prefer to purchase goods, we have an Amazon wishlist which supplies the items we need in our schools.
• Philanthropy
• Corporate partnerships
• Local fundraising events (Through Our Eyes photo exhibition, volunteer-led fundraisers, etc)
• Partnerships with other NGOs
• Merchandise sales

In addition to the above, we are diversifying our income by actively applying to grants and foundations - something we did not do before. 

Donations:

Branco Solidale Onlus: 2019 - $1700

Help Refugees: 2019 - 2020 - $28,691

Humanity Now: 2019 - $3000

Associazione Nuova Officina Onlus: 2019 - $1700

Liberamente Onlus: 2020 - $1195

Corporate donations: 2019 - $25,000

Humans of Cremona: 2019 - $9,000

Unione Femminile Poschiavo: 2019 - $5,878

Sunset Enterprise: 2019 - $10,000

Seritecno S.R.L.: 2019 - $2000

IFEC S.A.: 2019 - $1,376

DLA PIPER UK LLP/OFFICE: 2020 - $3,060

Corporate donations: 2019 - $25,000

These are in addition to individual donations we receive on a regular basis.

Our goal is to set up international schools across the world. By 2022, we want a presence in the following countries: 

• Turkey 
• Latin America
• Kenya 
• Yemen or Somalia 
• Italy
• Syria
• Greece

In order to expand our presence to additional countries like Yemen, Somalia, Latin America and Italy, we need to raise $600,000 in the form of a grant by mid-2021. 

Our estimated expenses for 2020 is $774,199.49

Our goal is to break a mechanism that marginalizes those who are already left behind which is a great challenge of our time. We need to amplify our impact on poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. Having strong ties with the local community is pivotal as well as having an extensive global network of entrepreneurs and changemakers.

We need support for this project under the financial, technical and cultural aspect. The Elevate Prize would be a great chance for us to link with the global community, to receive support and to improve the capacity-building process of the societies where we work.

Our capacity and ability to deliver high quality programs and results depends entirely on the support we are offered by independent, innovative organizations and institutes, whose main target is a real positive change based on real cooperation and exchange of know-how. We believe deeply in the mission and impact of MIT and that is why we are sending out our application for support.

We aim to partner with the most renowned universities in the countries we operate as well as abroad. The Istanbul University in Turkey, the Kenyatta University in Nairobi, but also Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Shanghai University, working with them would offer a major opportunity for our students to work towards to.

Our ultimate objective is to protect the right to choice of refugee and underprivileged children by offering them high quality education and a world-class diploma. 

Our vision is that once our first batch will graduate, these young women and men will have a chance to choose their future: some of them may want to go to stay in the host country, some of them may want to go abroad, and some of them, given the chance, may want to return to their home countries and start reconstruction.

Either way, the most logical next step would be to enroll in university. And who in the world would be more deserving of a scholarship than 18-year-olds who managed to lift themselves up from poverty and hardship through willpower and education?