Education Base

Education in Difficult Circumstances Research, Resources, Training and Publications

January 2017

Founded in 1991 as the Education Programme for Sudanese Refugees, Education Base is a Consultancy organisation specialising in Education and Training in difficult circumstances, whether slow-burn situations such as in displaced camps and slum areas or in situations of crisis during and after civil conflict and natural disasters.

Education Base bridges the gap between humanitarian intervention (such as emergency training) and development, recognizing that there is no quick fix for good education and training. Education Base is comfortable working in multi-cultural settings and working with individuals, groups and government authorities.

Education Base designs, implements and evaluates projects. At the programme level, Education Base also advises and assists you to develop sound educational policy.  Education Base carries out surveys and research using local youth teams familiar with the area and the people we work for.

Education Base has many years’ educational experience, especially work for youth, refugees, displaced people, street children and children affected by the AIDS epidemic.  Education Base will work anywhere and is currently has teams and offices in Eastern Congo, Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda.

Education Base has carried out consultancies for - or managed projects - for the British Council, DfID, European Commission, and many NGOs.  Education Base’s staff have worked for and with UNDP/UNOPS, UNHCR, UNESCO-PEER, IOM, World Bank, UNICEF, Government, ILO, USAID, MINUSCA, MINUSMA, MONUSCO; British Council/DFID, INGOs such as NRC and Save the Children. Windle Trust; Schools, churches, youth organisations

Education Base has provided advice for new NGOs setting up, training for NGO staff, provided management for an NGO for an interim period. 

It is a basic principle of Education Base that it also provides capacity-building for all with whom it works. All field managers and most staff of Education Base are nationals of the country they work in.

Who do we work for?

Youth

Education Base has a special focus on youth and has set up or supported youth centres, youth clubs, youth magazines and youth FM radio. Education Base has provided and implemented itself programmes for Children and Youth affected by the AIDS epidemic and by war, including ex-militias, youth in and out of school, working or unemployed.

In Goma, and other locations in Congo we provide livelihood skills, especially in languages and IT and Communication technology.

We specialise in providing peer-educators for Life Skills and HIV/AIDS prevention among youth.

Those who find it difficult to get education

Education Base has worked extensively with refugees, returnees, displaced people, and, importantly with those who were trapped behind the lines or isolated in occupied areas (the ‘stayees’).  In Uganda we teach young women who had been abducted by the LRA. They now learn following an accelerated (‘catch-up’) primary learning programme.  Their babies are looked after in a crèche while they are in class.

This includes the normally unreached: the unemployed or partly employed who have never completed their education, house-girls and houseboys, young people with no means to go to normal schools, those who are normally missed out, passed over or ignored. This can be by accelerated and catch-up education, or improvement of their language and communication skills.

Civil servants, NGO employees, Self-employed

Education Base provides courses (both direct and by distance methods) to upgrade the Communication Skills of Government staff and NGO workers as well as the self-employed. We train NGO workers in all aspects of report-writing, project proposal design and writing. This appeals particularly to women’s NGOs.

Teachers

Education Base supports and trains teachers by direct and distance education methods. We train emergency teachers on the job where the teaching force needs to be rebuilt and can do this in English, French, Swahili and Arabic. 

Education Base Languages

Education Base has a special objective which is to improve the quality of language and communication skills at all levels, including oral work designed for those such as radio announcers who need oral skills. We teach English, French, and Swahili in our different centres.  There is a special emphasis on helping people to know their existing level using tests we have developed.

Recent studies

OOSC Mali

OOSC Guinea

Registered in Uganda: 2012 No 159576