Palestinian children show off the kites they made at an IRC safe space in Gaza.
"My kite flew above the tent... I felt like it was lifting me away from all sadness" — eight-year-old Amatullah*.

In acute emergencies like the war in Gaza, Early Childhood Development (ECD) plays a critical role in protecting children’s well-being and sense of normalcy. Since the onset of the escalation, the IRC and local partners have launched a flexible, play-based ECD response to meet the urgent developmental and psychosocial needs of young children and their caregivers.

With over 650,000 children currently out of school across Gaza, access to safe, supportive environments for early learning is more critical than ever. Since January 2024, our ECD programming has reached more than 22,000 children, offering joyful and structured activities in shelters, mobile kindergartens, and community spaces.

A young Palestinian girl in a wheelchair holds a pack of colored pencils in her arms and smiles.
"For the first time in a long while, I played like this… I forgot about the war for a bit," says Sara Abu* after participating in an IRC early childhood development program.

Under the UBS-funded initiative Hope Through Learning and Play, the program is implemented in Gaza by our local partner, Save Youth Future Society using adapted ECD content from Ahlan Simsim and Preschool Healing Classrooms. This partnership has supported over 4,400, specifically displaced children - navigate grief, express emotions, and reconnect through play.

Learn more about the crisis in Gaza.

*Pseudnym used for privacy