As many as 15 projects from 13 countries have been shortlisted for 2016 WISE Awards, a global initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.
Each one of these projects displays high impacting solutions to education challenges and generates positive social impact.
The 15 finalists join the WISE Awards community of projects that are supporting cutting-edge practices and encouraging new collaboration around the world.
The 2016 WISE Awards Finalists are Geekie, Brazil; Ideas Box, France; Sports for Sharing, Mexico; Smart Robot Coding School, South Korea; Glowork, Saudi Arabia; Tara Akshar Literacy Programme, India; Lights for Learning, Spain/Latin America; Partners for Possibility, South Africa; Little Ripples, US/Chad; Jump Math, Canada; Youth for Technology Academy, US/Nigeria; Sonidos de la Tierra, Paraguay; 1Kgbox, China; Education for growth and value creation in Lebanon, Lebanon; and From puppets to empowerment, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
All these projects vary in their nature and focus on certain specific challenges that a society or a region faces. For example, the project "Puppets to Empowerment" aims to reduce the devastating impact that mines and unexploded ordnance have on children and their communities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to develop awareness about the constant and long-term danger they present.
The programme "Glowork" is the first women’s employment organisation in the Middle East and has launched a platform that links female jobseekers with employers. Glowork’s digital system lists thousands of job opportunities for women in customer service, sales, research and digital marketing.
"1KG Box" is a programme that designs and produces courses in the form of a box for teachers in rural China including an “Art Box”, “Road Safety Box”, “Reading Box Box” and “Handicraft Box’, among others. So far, 840,000 such courses have been provided free of charge to rural students.
"Sports for Sharing" designed for children aged 6 to 15, is a civic educational programme that uses the power of play and sport to trigger active citizenship resulting in local development of child-led projects, while "Ideas Box" is a portable media centre that unfolds on 100 square metres. It can accommodate 70 people at a time and 400 per day and provides learning tools.
"Education for Growth and Value Creation” aims to reverse the strong trend of migration from Lebanese villages to the cities by providing relevant training and fostering job opportunities locally.
"Little Ripples" provides a cost-effective and replicable early childhood development programme that empowers refugee women to implement culturally inspired, play-based education to support the social-emotional, cognitive, and physical development of refugee children.
Sonidos de la Tierra creates social capital through the running of orchestras as schools for life and has become Paraguay’s most emblematic social project that was born out of the necessity of creating an active civil society in a country that was coming out of long dictatorship.
The final six winners of WISE Awards are expected to be announced later this year.