On the International Day of Education, it is worth focusing on stories where a school is far more than a classroom. In many parts of the world, education represents safety, hope, and the opportunity to build a future at home—especially where daily life is shaped by war, poverty, and constant uncertainty.
This is why the Hungary Helps Program places special emphasis on education projects. We believe that locally delivered support is one of the strongest responses to forced migration: where there is a school, there is a future—and a reason to stay.
Access to education is a fundamental right, yet hundreds of millions of children worldwide are excluded from learning opportunities. In the world’s poorest countries, more than one third of children—approximately 36%—do not attend school at all (UNESCO, 2023). The situation is particularly severe in Sub-Saharan Africa and conflict-affected regions of the Middle East, where instability and violence continue to leave entire generations without access to education. In Syria, years of war left hundreds of thousands of children without access to schooling. The reconstruction of the Al-Amal (“Hope”) School in Aleppo and the rehabilitation of the Al-Riaya school complex in eastern Damascus, supported by the Hungary Helps Program, reopened pathways to learning for children whose lives had long been marked by uncertainty. Today, these institutions provide not only education, but also safety—and in many cases daily meals—serving as vital anchors for families and communities.
Across Africa, education is often affected not only by conflict, but also by isolation, environmental challenges, and the lack of basic infrastructure. In Uganda, on the islands of Lake Bunyonyi, Hungarian support helped make safe access to school possible. In Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we contributed to establishing essential educational facilities, helping young people gain the knowledge and skills they need to build a future in their own communities.
Education has the power to show the way forward even when everything else becomes uncertain. Hungary supports education because we believe the strongest answer to forced migration is hope, knowledge, and opportunity created locally—so that the future is shaped not by displacement, but by the choice to stay and build at home.
