Little Ripples, a Community-led Early Childhood Education Program
Little Ripples, an education program of non-profit organization iACT, serves young children in refugee camps located along the Chad-Sudan border, as well as provides trainings to educators teaching in contexts that have experienced or are continuing to experience violence and conflict. As humanitarian crises grow in both number and duration, having safe spaces in which children are able to play, learn, and feel joy becomes increasingly important.
Little Ripples was born directly out of the ideas and desires expressed by individual community members living in refugee camps in Chad, and the program’s framework and model were initially designed with the refugee communities there, over a decade ago. iACT strongly believes that members of a community are that community’s biggest assets. In all of the organization’s programs, members of the community are the ones that run and manage the program. The evolution of Little Ripples has included a shift from holding classes in a school building to being hosted in the homes of refugee families, and this iteration was entirely guided by the community.
From its many years of experience in working alongside conflict-affected communities, iACT also continues to see first-hand how community members can be effective trainers of their peers. Little Ripples teacher trainings (which are experiential and incorporate play) are designed to transform women and men — with little or no teaching experience and/or with low levels of education themselves — into skilled and confident early childhood education providers; and the train-the-trainer trainings also equip individuals to then become peer trainers, so that the community can expand the program on its own.
Importantly, iACT recognizes the crucial role that food and nutrition play in the proper support of young children’s development. Malnutrition continues to be a largely unaddressed problem in eastern Chad, with increasingly more people still fleeing the conflict in Sudan and temporarily settling into refugee camps across the border. As of January 2025, there are over 1.1 million people living in these camps. The harsh desert environment of this region, coupled with a severe lack of resources in general in both the country and among the refugee population, is not conducive to food procurement. Shortly after the implementation of Little Ripples, families began to express how important and necessary a meal component of the education program would be; as a result, since 2015, iACT has continued to support a meal service for all the students and teachers, which is incorporated into the class schedule each day the program is in session.
One unique aspect of Little Ripples is its focus on including mindfulness exercises into the daily curriculum. Teachers have observed improvements in students’ interactions and learning and have attributed these improvements to the use of mindfulness exercises and positive behavior management, both of which are modeled in the teacher and train-the-trainer trainings. Families and teachers share that their students oftentimes bring mindfulness activities home, and that the children’s time in class has led to increased confidence as well as increased ability to cope with stress.
To date, Little Ripples has operated in Greece, Tanzania, and Chad; and its trainings have been conducted in numerous other countries, including Cameroon and the Central African Republic. Additionally, with the program, trainings, and curriculum development, iACT has partnered with and consulted for other organizations such as PLAN International, Jesuit Refugee Service, UNICEF, and the Kingdom of Lesotho. In spring 2025, iACT will be piloting the program at the Mexico-US border.
Visit www.iact.ngo to learn more about Little Ripples and iACT’s work.
Photo from a Little Ripples classroom