Mobile schools

Mobile School is a Belgian foundation that provides portable schools for street children. Instead of taking homeless children and placing them in an institutional setting, which often doesn’t work, the Mobile School reaches out to children in their own environment. The goal isn’t just to teach them basic reading and writing skills, but also to help them learn that they deserve a better life. They’re given time to develop self-esteem and slowly prepare themselves for life off the streets, or if that isn’t possible, at least make their life on the streets more humane. The school itself is a small, mobile cart with blackboards and educational materials that slide out to give kids plenty of room to work on writing, drawing, learning to count and tell time. The organisation, founded by a young Belgian industrial designer, got started in Guatemala and Bolivia in 2000. The concept can easily be adapted to other countries and other circumstances, like working with children in refugee camps. Mobile School currently has 16 schools trekking around cities in South America, Asia, Africa and Europe, and hopes to continue to expand. Each school is run by local youth workers, who are trained by the Belgian foundation. It’s a low budget project, and one that could go far with the help of compassionate sponsors!