LEGO Foundation pledges $97 million for conflict education

The LEGO Foundation announced a five-year $97 million commitment to the International Rescue Committee to expand play-based education in conflict zones, aiming to reach 5 million children across East Africa and the Middle East.

For many children born into war, the loss doesn’t end when the fighting stops. It stretches into classrooms that never fully reopen, into trauma that reshapes childhood, and into attendance that becomes a struggle almost from day one.

On Wednesday. the LEGO Foundation pledged $97 million to expand International Rescue Committee programs that use play to help children learn and recover—an approach the partners say is designed for conflicts that shift faster than budgets and plans. The commitment is set to run for five years and aims to reach 5 million children across East Africa and the Middle East.

“Children who are born in conflict have their childhood stolen from them,” International Rescue Committee President David Miliband said. “But what’s remarkable about children is that if you give them a bit of their childhood back. they make the most of it. And this is about giving the best of childhood back.”.

The scope is intentionally fluid. LEGO Foundation CEO Sidsel Marie Kristensen said the framework will focus on “those in the most dire contexts.” She named countries currently under consideration—Ethiopia. Lebanon. the Palestinian territories. Somalia. South Sudan. Sudan. Syria and Uganda—while acknowledging that “who. exactly. they serve will change as conflicts evolve.”.

Kristensen described the structure as “truly agile. ” built to move play-based learning wherever it is most needed. rather than tying funding to place-based grants that could become outdated as crises shift. “In the world we are living in right now. nobody knows honestly what is happening tomorrow or in two months. ” she said. “That (flexibility) is what we need right now.”.

The education push centers on an IRC-led program called PlayMatters. Under the new funding. more classrooms are expected to adopt the program’s method of training teachers of 3-to 12-year-olds to integrate what it calls “playful learning” into lessons. The goal is not to dictate what teachers teach. but to help them tailor instruction to the needs that arise in schools serving children traumatized by crises.

Program leaders also act as policy advocates, working with government officials to embed their materials into national curriculum.

In western Uganda’s Nakivale settlement, a teacher described what that flexibility looks like in daily classroom life. Sister Kasingye Secunda, who teaches at a primary school serving refugees, said PlayMatters helped reduce absenteeism. “Teachers try their best to make students ‘feel at home. ’” she said. but added that many students don’t understand both the local language and English. the language of instruction.

She described lessons built around children’s everyday engagement: learners study colors by selecting mangoes. bananas and other fruits to share with classmates; they build confidence by giving class presentations; and they develop leadership by taking turns guiding small groups through activities. “Learners enjoy the lessons,” Secunda said. “They are eager to come to school.”.

Across the region, the partnership is also expanding digitally delivered multimedia learning. From Ethiopia to Tanzania. a radio show helps children name their emotions through episodes offered in multiple languages. featuring culturally familiar characters. PlayMatters Project Director Martin Omukuba said the program is expanding such digitally delivered multimedia lessons. including remote support for schools in South Sudan that are made inaccessible by flooding for half the year.

Omukuba also pointed to the practical realities of conflict-era classrooms, where needs can change overnight. A refugee class size can quickly jump from 25 to 150 students. he said. which creates new demands for sanitation. nutrition or other classroom needs not traditionally categorized under education. He credited the LEGO Foundation’s approach for trusting IRC to move grant money around in emergencies.

“We need first to make sure that children are alive,” Omukuba said. “We can introduce the education when they are stabilized.”

The partners are not starting from scratch. The LEGO Foundation and IRC first collaborated in 2019 when the LEGO Foundation committed $100 million to “Ahlan Simsim,” the show by IRC and the nonprofit Sesame Workshop that helps kids affected by the Syrian and Rohingya refugee crises.

Kristensen. who leads the Denmark-based corporate foundation that funds early childhood development. said the LEGO Foundation has been scaling up donations in conflict settings. The organization recently announced a separate $30 million partnership with global funding collaborative Co-Impact to support locally led solutions for learning and wellbeing among children impacted by conflict and crisis.

Her message with Wednesday’s announcement was aimed beyond the agencies themselves. calling for broader cooperation across governments. civil society and the private sector. “That is so needed in a world right now where the development aid is decreasing. ” she said. referring to international assistance cuts by the United States and many European nations.

Miliband said those cuts have strained the humanitarian system over the past year. He pointed to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Congo as evidence of how aid reductions can backfire on problems that are treated as peripheral until they grow dangerous. “a graphic demonstration of the short-sightedness of aid cuts for activities that are considered marginal,” he said.

He also described sanitation and handwashing programs in Congo’s Ituri province. where the global health emergency is centered. saying the programs lost U.S. funding last year as part of the Trump administration’s dismantling of international development. “We warned at the time what the risk was,” Miliband said. “And sure as night follows day, we end up with an under-detected Ebola outbreak.”.

For IRC officials, early childhood development isn’t a luxury—it is a response to toxic stress that can alter brain development and delay learning. The problem, they say, is that education has often been treated as optional when emergencies are being triaged.

Patty McIlreavy. the president and CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. said education was underfunded in humanitarian responses even before wealthy countries slashed their aid budgets. “Life saving” assistance was too narrowly limited to “what do you actually need to keep the body alive. ” she said. and that definition excluded “life sustaining” efforts such as children’s education.

McIlreavy pointed to Wednesday’s announcement as an example for donors who ask how philanthropy can help in complex conflicts when timelines and outcomes are unclear. “It’s not our role as philanthropy to fix what’s broken in a country,” she said. “That’s politics. That’s bigger than us. But there’s so much we can do — even by offering six months or a year of education.”.

What ties the announcements together is the underlying premise that children’s learning can’t wait for perfect conditions. With the LEGO Foundation’s $97 million commitment—paired with a pledge to keep funding flexible as crises evolve—the partnership is betting that play-based education can give children something war often removes first: a sense that childhood still belongs to them.

LEGO Foundation International Rescue Committee $97 million PlayMatters playful learning childhood education conflict zones humanitarian aid East Africa Middle East David Miliband Sidsel Marie Kristensen Martin Omukuba