Conference Program

EducAid’s experience in the Gaza Strip is grounded in a human rights–based approach that recognizes persons with disabilities as rights-holders rather than passive recipients of assistance. Empowerment, self-determination, and emancipation are central to this work.

In 2019, EducAid has established the Gaza Independent Living Center, promoting autonomy through customized assistive devices, peer psychosocial support, and vocational training. Over three years, the Center supported more than 600 persons with disabilities and distributed over 1,000 assistive devices, many produced locally.

Its multidisciplinary team was largely composed of professionals with disabilities. This affirmed a key principle: persons with disabilities are not passive beneficiaries but active agents shaping solutions that affect their lives and communities. In 2022, this approach was strengthened through FabLabs with 3D printers for production of customized assistive devices.

After October 7, 2023 the subsequent military offensive destroyed the Center and forced the team into repeated displacement. Yet the human capital built over previous years was not lost. Many team members, including professionals with disabilities, continued working on the ground, adapting their skills to the humanitarian context. This continuity shows how investments in empowerment, local expertise, and disability leadership can generate resilience even when physical infrastructure is destroyed.

The war has produced an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Over 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced, and the formal education system has collapsed, with more than 95% of schools damaged or destroyed. In response, Temporary Learning Spaces emerged as community initiatives organized by families, teachers, and volunteers to maintain children’s learning. In 2024, OCHA supported these community-led initiatives, integrating them into the humanitarian response.

Despite these efforts, children with disabilities remain among the most excluded because of physical barriers, lack of adapted materials, and absence of assistive devices. At the same time, the number of people living with disabilities has increased dramatically: WHO estimates around 42,000 new cases of permanent injuries, while 92% of roads are damaged or destroyed, making the environment inaccessible. In such conditions, standardized humanitarian responses often fail to include persons with disabilities and risk reinforcing exclusion.

EducAid has mobilized its team through a twin-track approach, acting both on the environment and at the individual level. It promotes disability mainstreaming within Temporary Learning Spaces, including 23 spaces directly supported by EducAid, reaching over 3,000 children with and without disabilities, while improving accessibility and training teachers on inclusive education in emergencies.

Furthermore EducAid implements targeted interventions for children with disabilities through an outreach approach, reaching them in displacement settings. The team develops context-appropriate, personalized solutions in reactivated FabLabs using 3D printing, recycled materials, and local resources.

In a territory where many assistive devices cannot enter, local digital fabrication reduces dependence on external supplies and ensures continuity of interventions. The most transformative element lies in the leadership of professionals with disabilities, who redefine their role in humanitarian action, not as passive beneficiaries but as protagonists and creators of solutions.

This experience shows that inclusive humanitarian action requires rethinking dominant humanitarian models, placing rights, dignity, participation, and disability leadership at the center.