A Child’s Right to Early Childhood Education in Emergency Contexts

As part of The Canadian Journal of Children’s Rights, Vol 7 No 1 (2020): Respecting Children’s Rights in Schools (pages 241-262), this paper presents an early childhood education model that upholds a child’s right to education in one of the world’s most vulnerable and forgotten communities: a refugee camp. iACT, a non-governmental organization, works directly with refugee beneficiaries to establish, adapt, and implement Little Ripples, an early childhood education program—laying the foundation for a lifetime of well-being, learning, health, and peace for children affected by displacement and violence. This paper explores how iACT invests in the capacity of refugee community members to provide an early learning program that exceeds global standards for child-friendly spaces and the nurturing care model by prioritizing children’s rights.