This App Helps Give Refugees An Education

To bridge educational losses suffered by Syrians displaced by war, a new accelerator looks to technology and personal connections.

- Michelle Z. Donahue

Ready to read?” I asked.

A slight pause. “Hi, yes,” Yara replied.

With a soft lilt, Yara began to read “Stone Soup,” a bedtime story about hungry travelers who persuade recalcitrant villagers to make them dinner. She hesitated on a few words, and I offered a bit of help with her pronunciation. Otherwise, Yara sailed through the story with aplomb.

Our session, lighthearted and quick, felt like a sit-down with my own children but with an extra jolt of triumph. Yara, 14, read to me from her home in Lebanon via Kindi, a reading-buddy smartphone app that lets her work on her English anytime she feels like it.

For Yara, learning English is both a passion and a predicament: She’s a Syrian refugee living in Saadnayel, hometown for more than 35,000 Syrians in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, about an hour east of Beirut. The team of developers and designers building the app has worked there for more than a year in an all-girls’ school operated by a Lebanese nonprofit, the Kayany Foundation.

Before Kindi, Yara had no one to practice with. Though it wearied her, she would study alone for hours every day, determined to boost her language skills. The app gives her a way to reach out and find someone to practice with—and they can be anywhere in the world.