Helping children thrive through adversity
Innovative solutions for supporting early childhood development in crisis-affected areas
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Initiatives that emphasize responsive caregiving and play-based early learning can transform children’s futures, helping them overcome challenges and reach their full potential, says Heidi Rosbe of the International Rescue Committee. Heidi talks with Aisha Schnellmann about how high-quality early childhood development support helps children affected by conflict and crisis grow and thrive.
Aisha Schnellmann: What are the biggest challenges facing children globally and in the Middle East region?
Heidi Rosbe: The earliest years of life, from birth to age 6, are most critical for development. Our brains grow most rapidly during this period of childhood, laying the foundation for future learning, behavior, and health. This crucial window of development significantly impacts a child’s ability to thrive later in life.
For children living in areas affected by conflict and crisis, as we are seeing across the Middle East region, the challenges are greater. Stressors like displacement, violence, and instability during the formative years can severely disrupt a child’s cognitive and social-emotional growth. Despite the evidence showing that high-quality early childhood development services can counteract these harmful effects on child development, less than 3% of all humanitarian funding is allocated to supporting young children during this critical stage, leaving a significant gap in addressing their needs.
“Stressors like displacement, violence, and instability during the formative years can severely disrupt a child’s cognitive and social-emotional growth.”
AS: What do children need to help them thrive?
HR: To thrive, children need a safe and nurturing environment that supports their cognitive, social, and emotional development, as best outlined in the Nurturing Care Framework. For children affected by conflict and crisis, quality early childhood development support can mitigate the negative effects of adversity during the critical early years. Initiatives that emphasize responsive caregiving and play-based early learning can transform children’s futures, helping them overcome challenges and reach their full potential. As members of the Ahlan Simsim team, we think of our role as not only to help children survive, but to enable them to thrive.
AS: How is the work of the International Rescue Committee helping children?
HR: Our complementary initiatives Ahlan Simsim and Play to Learn take a holistic approach to supporting young children and their caregivers.
Ahlan Simsim was launched as a partnership between the International Rescue Committee and Sesame Workshop. It combines expertise in crisis intervention with the power of impactful educational media, and is now comprised of more than 100 local and national partners across Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Syria, including government ministries, that are collectively working to help children learn, grow and thrive. We have recently begun expanding, with pilot programs in Yemen and training our partners in Gaza.
The Ahlan Simsim approach supports children’s cognitive, social, and emotional growth through tailored programs and services. These include remote and in-person preschool programs, school readiness programs, parenting support, and early childhood development guidance delivered via primary healthcare systems. These programs are combined with an Arabic-language version of the Sesame Street TV show (also titled Ahlan Simsim), which has been proven to build critical social-emotional skills like emotion regulation and coping strategies.
AS: Can you tell us about something that has inspired you in this work?
HR: From the start of the project, we had planned to leverage digital technology and remote ways of reaching children and families. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this workstream and pushed us to innovate quickly to meet needs in a dramatically changed world. This led to the creation of a remote preschool program in which teachers guided parents over WhatsApp to engage in early learning activities with their children at home. An impact evaluation conducted by NYU’s Global TIES for Children research center demonstrated impact that exceeded our expectations: It showed that children in the program achieved learning gains comparable to the gains from a year of in-person preschool. This finding is groundbreaking – it opens up new avenues for reaching children during periods of time or in places where attending in-person preschool isn’t possible.
It was even more inspiring to discover that caregivers’ literacy levels did not affect their children’s progress, which prompts new ideas about supporting children in equitable ways and highlights how powerful playful caregiver-child engagement is in fostering early development. These findings have opened up exciting possibilities for expanding versions of the program and applying its lessons to other initiatives and new contexts.
“Our vision is a future in which all children, including those in conflict- and crisis-affected areas, have access to high-quality early childhood development support.”
AS: What is your vision for children in the future?
Our vision is a future in which all children, including those in conflict- and crisis-affected areas, have access to high-quality early childhood development support that allows them to grow and thrive. A whole-child approach recognizes that the needs of young children and their caregivers do not exist merely in a single sector, such as health or education. Achieving our vision requires collaboration across sectors and partnerships with governments, civil society organizations, and local stakeholders to reach children across all the components of their surrounding community.
Our recently published report Transforming Tomorrow reflects what we’ve learned about delivering scalable, long-term impact, and shows the importance of context-driven solutions co-designed with local partners. Looking ahead, we aim to expand access to our resources, identify gaps in reaching underserved children, and address evolving needs arising from new crises. By working together, we can create a future in which all children have the support they need to thrive and succeed.
Footnotes
Heidi Rosbe joined the International Rescue Committee in 2018 with the launch of the Ahlan Simsim initiative. She has spent over 15 years designing and managing programs for crisis- and conflict-affected communities that implement innovative solutions to boost human resilience and foster equitable societies. Her efforts have included work with the United Nations Development Programme, the Women’s Refugee Commission, Encounter, and the Arab American Association of New York, among others. She is a trained mediator and has taught the graduate-level “Peacemaking and Peacebuilding” course at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs. Heidi holds a Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and has a working knowledge of Arabic, French, and Spanish. She lives in New York with her family.
Ahlan Simsim Website
IRC on LinkedIn
Heidi on LinkedIn
The International Rescue Committee is a finalist for the 2024 Klaus J. Jacobs Best Practice Prizes, which recognize institutions and individuals who are working to implement evidence-based solutions aimed at promoting child development and learning in practice.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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