World Refugee Day - Community is Our Superpower!

Today, on World Refugee Day, we reflect on the enormous challenges facing displaced communities around the world - but also on the quiet power that enables people to survive and rebuild: community. In refugee camps and crisis zones, where systems have failed and futures feel uncertain, it’s always community that keeps young people learning, safe, and hopeful.

At Alsama Project, this isn’t an abstract idea. Community is the foundation of everything we do. What began in 2020 as a small centre for Syrian refugee girls in Shatila has grown into a network of education centres reaching hundreds of out-of-school refugee children. But this growth hasn’t come from the outside. It’s come from within.

Two of Alsama’s co-founders are Syrian refugees. Each of our centres is supervised by a parent of a current student. More than 90% of our staff come from the refugee communities we work in. Our HQ isn’t in a glossy, distant office - it’s based inside one of our centres, in the heart of Shatila refugee camp. And that will never change.

Because of this deep community connection, Alsama can deliver an accelerated education programme that takes young people from illiteracy to reading and writing in six months - preparing them for employment or higher education within six years. These outcomes rely on extraordinary commitment from students and families - and we see that every day. Our attendance rate averages over 94%, five days a week, 44 weeks a year. That kind of consistency only happens when a programme truly belongs to the community it serves.

In Lebanon, 6 in 10 Syrian refugee teenagers have never been to school. Many are pulled into child labour or early marriage. But that’s not because families don’t care - it’s because they’ve been trapped in cycles of displacement, poverty, and illiteracy. That’s why Alsama also runs literacy and awareness classes for the families of our students - helping to rebuild a culture of learning from the ground up. The aim is not to “intervene”, but to support communities to lift themselves.

Beyond academics, we offer activities that support young people’s physical and emotional wellbeing - from cricket for refugee youth, to yoga for refugee girls. We also run Alsama Studio, a social enterprise that employs students and mothers from the camps to create embroidery that carries their stories and generates income. In the same vein, some of our older students and graduates now teach Arabic through our language school - in Beirut, the UK and beyond.

And for those preparing for life beyond school, the G12++ certification will offer formal recognition of their achievements - opening doors to higher education and meaningful work that would otherwise remain out of reach.

On this World Refugee Day, we remind ourselves: When communities lead, young people thrive. And at Alsama, community is, and always will be, our superpower.