Paper Airplanes: Learn, Connect, Soar

According to UNHCR, 17 million people across the Middle East and North Africa have fled their homes due to violence and persecution. 61% of them are in their prime learning and working years and face barriers to continuing their educational and professional growth. Paper Airplanes’ Women in Tech Program addresses the lack of STEM, digital, and business learning and networking opportunities available to millions of conflict-affected young women.

The Women in Tech (WiT) Program combines hard and soft skills training in a blended model of online group class time, individual assignments, and one-on-one mentorship via video conference. WiT students engage with market-driven curricula without the burdens of cost, travel, or extensive prerequisites. Students build English proficiency for matriculation in the WiT program via Paper Airplanes’ language courses. Scaling up this solution would offer countless young women the necessary tools and support to gain marketable skills and build sustainable livelihoods. 

Paper Airplanes is addressing the demand from refugee and displaced young women for access to STEM skills, learning and job growth pathways, and the resources and support necessary to achieve self-reliance for themselves and their families.  

Refugee girls are half as likely to enroll in secondary education as boys. These young women represent a fraction of the 24% of refugees attending secondary school and the 3% reaching tertiary education, language and cost being the biggest barriers (UNHCR, 2019). Though women make up 70% of displaced people, considerably fewer displaced girls than boys are able to attend school at any level (EducationCannotWait, 2017). In the MENA region alone, nearly 3.5 million women 15-17 years old are out of school (UNICEF, 2019). Worldwide, at least 62 million girls are out of school and over 20 million live in conflict-affected and fragile settings (Georgetown Institute for Women, 2016). Girls face additional gendered obstacles to learning, including insufficient sanitation and clean water, exposure to harassment, the opportunity cost of girls’ household labor, and a lack of familial or cultural support (UNHCR, 2020). Paper Airplanes’ blended programs leverage video conferencing to address these barriers, support learning, and connect young women with educational and professional networks. 

Paper Airplanes offers a set of complementary programs which support students development of English language skills and marketable technical skills in web development and business-analytics. These course offerings are folded into the Women in Tech (WiT) program, specifically designed to be accessible and relevant to young women eager to continue their education. 

Students use video conferencing technology  to connect with classmates, instructors, and mentors to work through our curricula. Since bandwidth can be limited, students can complete lessons off-line and conserve connectivity for interacting with their learning community and professional contacts. Students in WiT hone hard skills such as mastery of CSS, Javascript, and HTML alongside soft skills like industry-specific and work-place communications and, of course, interviewing.

Our Youth Exchange and English programs provide an introduction to Paper Airplanes’ learning model for younger and beginner language students, while (WiT) deepens technical language ability, grows in-demand technical skills, and builds women’s confidence. Paper Airplanes employs a novel blend of accessible technologies such as live online video conferencing, engages relevant curricula, and integrates one-on-one tutoring to offer conflict-affected young women individualized support as they develop skills and compete for scholarships and employment.

The demographic focus of this project are women between 16-24 who are refugees and conflict-affected persons in the Middle-East. 40% of our students are located in Syria, and the other 60% are living in surrounding host countries. As part of strengthening our outreach to young women who have survived conflict, we will also recruit women who have been resettled in Europe and North America. Providing engaging, blended learning opportunities to gain language and professional skills will increase the opportunities available to these young women and better prepare them for resettlement or to return home. 

Our programs, curricula, and model are crafted based on the data and feedback we gather from students and volunteers through surveys and consistently available staff members. Among the insights that we have identified from collected data is the existence of unique barriers to young women’s matriculation in our programs. Our recruitment experience has illustrated that parents of daughters are more hesitant to enroll their children in an online learning program than are parents of sons due to traditional gender roles and concerns about online learning. By strengthening parent outreach efforts to build greater trust in Paper Airplanes, we hope to recruit and retain more female students.

Paper Airplanes’ solution addresses barriers to young women’s access to STEM and digital education and offers an innovative approach to competency building.  We invest in the holistic growth of each student through market-informed courses and student advising services. Students graduate with strong hard and soft skills, ready to excel in university and the global and remote workforce.

Though young women are underrepresented in learning programs designed for refugees, our English program has nearly reached parity (47:53 Women:Men). Investing in WiT will enable us to understand and enrich the experiences of female students and grow the female cohort overall.

Paper Airplanes uses a blend of accessible technologies to offer unique, innovative learning solutions to young women affected by conflict. Unlike in-person training programs like Re:Coded, our programs are facilitated online, enabling students, particularly young women, to study without making potentially treacherous journeys to a learning center and risking harassment or discomfort in the classroom. In contrast with other online learning programs, Paper Airplanes offers a blended model that offers the flexibility of remote learning with the individual attention of one-on-one tutoring and mentorship. Unlike MIT ReACT, which caters to the most competitive pre-qualified students, Paper Airplanes’ builds the skills students need to bridge into any program they choose. Through one-on-one tutoring and ongoing support from program staff, Paper Airplanes’ students can build the prerequisite skills they need to thrive in advanced courses and the professional world. 

In contrast with intensive technical training programs serving refugees, like Re:Coded, Paper Airplanes’ programs are not siloed, but rather form coherent learning pathways. By offering a set of learning trajectories that include language and technical courses, students build interconnected competencies. 

Paper Airplanes’ model of student support improves matriculation rates, particularly among young women. Through ongoing support to help students to confront challenges, we are solving the nearly ubiquitous issue of low matriculation (35%)  and female participation (25%) in similar organizations like Kiron. Paper Airplanes’ students have been successful in transitioning into higher education and the workforce, thanks to the support offered through our advising mechanisms. 

By harnessing video conferencing technology, Paper Airplanes provides students with direct access to  personal tutors, group conversations, and advisors. The blended learning model harnesses the power of free, user-friendly messaging and video conferencing platforms such as Skype, Google Hangouts, and Whatsapp. Program staff and tutors develop and work through unique, trauma-informed curricula that are accessible on mobile devices and supported by free technologies such as GoogleDrive. Volunteers and staff have access to webinars and specific trainings in online teaching and language pedagogy.

Tutors and students are matched using a smart, data-driven proprietary algorithm that takes relevant demographic factors, and language ability into account. Students and tutors both report overwhelmingly positive experiences with the pairings. 

Paper Airplanes’ solutions further integrate and build off of technology via strategic partnerships with organizations like Learning Blocks and Duolingo. Learning Blocks offers secure, blockchain certificates of achievement that are both accessible and verifiable to students and potential employers. Duolingo also contributes to the viability of an entirely online learning experience by offering English language proficiency exams online. This allows students to easily overcome the obstacles of cost, travel, and family concern related to traveling to a proctored exam.

Our students, volunteers, and staff utilize a range of technologies that include 1) scheduling platforms like WhenIsGood, 2) various video conferencing applications, 3) messaging systems, and 4) GoogleDrive for consistent access to curricula, assignments, and feedback. Each of these mechanisms was designed to provide optimal flexibility to accommodate students’ unstable situations and limited  access to the internet. 

Our students meet with their tutors and instructors via video conferencing technology on a variety of platforms, in order to accommodate for which platforms work best in each student’s location. Aside from face-to-face video chats, students and program staff also communicate through messaging systems that allow them to exchange voice notes and pictures of handwritten assignments for students with limited bandwidth. Paper Airplanes has served over 2,000 students with this model and has received consistent, positive feedback from both tutors and students. 

Paper Airplanes is dedicated to breaking down technical barriers to participation, among them students’ limited access to bandwidth. As part of our growing network of intra-organizational support, we are exploring partnerships to offer free data cards to students, allowing them to study uninterrupted by technical difficulties and completely cost-free.

A lack of English and technical skills poses an enormous challenge to success for women and girls who have been affected by conflict. We address these obstacles with a learning model and program designed to be accessible and relevant to these young women by avoiding the pitfalls of in-person learning and incorporating individualized attention to ensure student success. 

By providing diverse, enriching courses and curricula online, our students can learn and develop their skills without risking their safety or comfort traveling to and studying at a learning center that may be ill equipped to host them. Our programs require minimal hardware and operate via basic internet service, meaning that students can complete assignments, meet with their tutors and mentors, and chat about their final projects all from home.

Conflict-affected students regularly deal with a variety of challenges to matriculation and program completion, including unpredictable events and schedule changes and balancing responsibilities within their families. Our student advising staff as well as program tutors and mentors are constantly available to help students troubleshoot problems, reschedule classes, and assist with assignments. By offering one-on-one student support, we are working to ensure that students succeed despite the complex factors that can pull them off of their learning pathway. 

Comprehensive course offerings provide students the opportunity to learn a variety of crucial skills for the workplace and higher education without the hassle of seeking out disparate learning and training opportunities. Paper Airplanes offers easy movement between courses as well as cross-registration into the programs offered by partners like Kiron. With this complete learning pathway, Paper Airplanes provides support for students’ entire educational journey, giving them the confidence, skills, and connections they need to succeed in their later pursuits.

The activities are the English program and Youth Exchange program (1-1 tutoring, conversation groups), Women in Tech (class time and meetings with mentors) and Student Advising (webinars, 1-1 mentoring). Our outputs are increased proficiency in English and knowledge of technical subjects (web development and business analytics). Our outcomes are that women are employed and able to pursue further education that will contribute to their career trajectories.

Since 2014 we have served over 2,100 students. In 2020 alone, we will enroll over 1,150 students across our programs. We project reaching 1,300 students in 2021. In 5 years we anticipate serving 1,500-1,700 students per year.

Our goals for growth over the next year and in the coming 5 years are focused on expanding and deepening our connections with students and partners in order to offer diverse development pathways to as many students as possible. We plan to increase the number of students we serve, placing special focus on recruiting young women, through in-person community information sessions, optimized social media content, and strategic new partnerships. 

In order to support the increase in students, volunteers, and program offerings, Paper Airplanes will launch a streamlined, comprehensive Learning Management System. This platform will centralize and offer all of the crucial video, messaging, and curricular resources currently housed in disparate technologies, making the learning experience simpler for everyone. We will further simplify the processes associated with matriculation by leading a multilateral collaboration bringing educators serving conflict-affected youth together to make cross-registration and credential recognition as seamless as possible. 

While these steps will refine the Paper Airplanes model and enable growth, the real opportunity for global scale comes from our approach to integration.  Beyond partnerships, we are taking steps to place our programs within online and residential schools and universities to further break-down barriers between conflict-affected students and education. Similarly, integration with informal learning programs and credentialing standards and technologies, places Paper Airplanes at the center of a push to establish a secure and verifiable educational and professional transcript for refugees, displaced people, and migrants everywhere. 

In the next 5 years, Paper Airplanes will complete development of its Learner Management System, refine a business model to stabilize multiple revenue-generating strategies, and budget resources to grow and professionalize our team.  While these challenges are fundamentally financial, they also require resources that could be sourced through Solve’s network.

Paper Airplanes must invest in its operational and communications staff in order to implement and grow any business model. The development of the business model as well as partnerships, fundraising communications assets, and market surveys could flourish via collaboration with Solve partners. 

Our strategies for overcoming the barriers to growth and scale rely on integrating new, experienced perspectives into the team and partnership network as well as investing in more agile technology to meet students’ needs. We plan to grow and professionalize our staff in order to develop new curricula and programs as well as serve in crucial advising roles to support our growing student cohort. 

We also plan to deepen existing partnerships and foster new collaborations to increase students’ matriculation into Paper Airplanes programs via cross-registration with partner programs, in-community recruitment support, and greater access to necessary hardware and bandwidth. Building a network of diverse partners will also create more and reinforced bridges to real job opportunities, degree-earning programs, and technical skills trainings. 

Finally, by continuing to invest in streamlining the technological toolbox available to the learning community, we will offer students, volunteers, and staff a more agile and intuitive learning platform. The Learning Management System will house the different pieces of software that support Paper Airplanes’ learning model and allow all in the learning community to focus more on coursework than on managing multiple platforms. 

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We currently have one full times staff member and ten part time staff members. This small team provides crucial leadership and strategy to over 50 staff volunteers and network of approximately 1,200 tutors each year.

Our team offers decades of diverse experience in organizational growth, partner development, educational tech, grant administration, project management, team leadership, and successful innovation. The team is energized by the prospect of critically reflecting on existing practices and continuing the process of innovation in order to offer meaningful learning opportunities to more conflict-affected young women in the region. Combining backgrounds in business, technology, organization management, education, and consulting, this group is uniquely prepared to implement our solution to provide programs that increase young women’s STEM, digital, and English language skills and build their confidence for successful futures.

Kiron offers cross-enrollment with Paper Airplanes courses.

Barmej provides scholarships for Women in Tech graduates to participate in an intensive online coding bootcamp.

Learning Blocks offers blockchain certificates of achievement to program graduates.

Duolingo provides an online English language proficiency exam so that students can leapfrog the cost and travel obstacles of attending a proctored exam.

Beyond a small dedicated staff and expertly developed curriculum, Paper Airplanes’ key resource is the ongoing recruitment and ability to train hundreds of volunteer tutors.  Though this has been an online process, in order to achieve scale and satisfy growing student demand, we must grow our high school, university, and work-based volunteer groups. While this volunteer base allows us to control costs, the current absence of a fully-staffed organization limits growth and prevents scaling. In order to implement our key organization activities at scale (course development, monitoring and evaluation, communications, student and volunteer recruitment, and revenue-generation) we need stable fundraising to support 8-10 full-time employees.  As a virtual organization, we do not have to cover office space expenses, but we must be able to maintain our LMS and its content.  

Though students are Paper Airplanes’ primary participants, they are not our customers.  Schools, universities, training programs, and employers receive a distinct benefit from our services as they seek out well-prepared students and qualified employees. Paper Airplanes’ value proposition for the students is the improved prospects coming from language proficiency and employable skills. The key indicators of our impact are the numbers of students that go on to higher education, advanced professional training, and employment after participating in our programs. 

Paper Airplanes continues to cultivate three distinct revenue streams, forecasting and balancing between them in order to mitigate risk and build sustainability. They are competitive grants and awards, fee-for-service partnerships, and philanthropy. Paper Airplanes never charges its students a fee.  Through 6 years of operations, Paper Airplanes has never borrowed money nor does it have any debt. 

Annually, and on an ongoing basis, Paper Airplanes develops relationships with funding agencies and foundations to apply for grants. We target grants that can underwrite specific programs, boost development of new technology or capacity, or support experimentation and research.

Paper Airplanes actively seeks to work cooperatively with other organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit,  to provide learning programs and access to work. We seek to  augment partners’ educational and job-training efforts by providing access to our program on a fee-for-service basis. These are done on a contract or per student basis. We also continue to consider offers to license our content and technology.

Like many nonprofits, Paper Airplanes dedicates considerable resources to raising public awareness and fundraising campaigns.  With the engagement of our Board, we also developed an active private fundraising effort. We shift our strategies in our language and communication channels in order to respond to changes in context and distinguish ourselves in the competition for charitable contributions. 

Solve can unlock three significant needs for Paper Airplanes. These are access to financial capital, networks, and broader awareness of our programs and efforts to provide refugee and displaced young women with the skills they need to unlock further opportunities.

Paper Airplanes’ staff is 75% women under the age of 30 and includes many  former students. This demographic’s leadership lends a unique perspective rooted in experience to the organization’s efforts in program design and access. Persistent and meaningful engagement with students positions staff to be effective advocates for them and support students as they confront challenges both in the programs and their communities. 

Through the Solve network, we aim to connect Paper Airplanes and our strategic partners with investors and hiring partners in order to scale our proposed solution. Our partnership goal is to pivot from traditional collaboration to the integration of Paper Airplanes with like-minded organizations that are motivated to provide STEM-related learning and work for women. In this manner, we can provide courses as part of work-place training and apprenticeships. Integrating Paper Airplanes language courses into existing online and residential programs will help us grow female matriculation and graduation rates. 

We are eager to partner with hiring and educational partners, as well as organizations that wish to provide volunteers and content. By growing our relationships with hiring partners, we will increase the number of bridges between our program graduates and real job opportunities. We are particularly interested in cultivating relationships with entities who value remote work environments, employees with knowledge of two or more languages, and who seek coding, business analytics, and data science skills. 

We also hope to create and fortify educational partnerships to offer students easy movement between steps in their learning journey. Effective partners will run concurrent programs and offer scholarships to eligible students. Our final partnership goal is to grow our network of volunteers by partnering with businesses, universities, and high schools. Creating sustainable volunteer groups will allow us to satisfy the demand for tutors as we scale our solution. 

We would like to partner with organizations whose collaboration can help us grow and scale-up by reaching more students and expanding access to robust educational pathways. This is an opportunity to create coherent and consistent learning programs that students can track to in-demand skills. We believe Kiron, SNHU Global Education Movement, and The Rumie Initiative are among likely partners. 

To help us overcome technical barriers and scale our reach, Libraries Without Borders and Open Learning Exchange can support evolution in our model through asynchronous learning and access to courses and supplemental materials.

We are keen to connect with Solvers who are active in Work of the Future, whether as skill-builders like Refactored.ai or employers inclined to consider hiring refugee and displaced women locally or remotely. Many potential employers, like Microsoft, CISCO, and Johnson & Johnson, have the global reach and expertise to inform our curricula and further validate student credentials. They can use our courses to offer on-the-job training and professional apprenticeships.  Other Solve Members can also help us better understand the dynamics of our own challenges, the barriers to development and education for refugees in other parts of the world, and leverage their own human capital to support our mission with know-how, volunteers, and technical capacity.

Alternative pathways for learning and re-entering education means young people can quickly make-up for lost time. For refugee and displaced people, this means offering skills education, support, and the confidence to succeed. First, Paper Airplanes’ programs provide English proficiency, unlocking a new universe of online and residential learning. Second, our advisory program lets students explore future opportunities in education and employment and connect with a mentor for guidance along the way. Third, completing our unique blended programs helps students grow into more confident learners with the skills to participate in and meaningfully contribute to online, in-person, and work-place learning. 

The Andan Prize will be used to solve two challenges we face in increasing refugee inclusion, with an emphasis on young women.  First, we will investigate the challenges facing these young women and create innovative strategies for inclusion to address them. Very little is known about communication and marketing to refugee women. This is due in large part to the fact that their participation requires addressing often complex family and societal dynamics. Secondly, we will create a sustainable support system within the learning environment that is tailored to the needs of young women.  There is ample evidence that refugee women are ‘gendered-out’ of the social and business networks that provide assistance, know-how, and even jobs. By identifying and understanding the obstacles to participation and inclusion of young conflict-affected women, we can then inform recruitment and programmatic strategies that ensure these students’ long term success. 

In order to position ourselves to reach more people with a broader range of courses and pathways, we have a plan to develop and launch a Learner Management System (LMS). There are four key reasons we are committed to an LMS:

1. Track student learning and progress so that staff can continue to focus on providing individualized support and directly interacting with students and tutors by consolidating our content and student support in one place. 

2. Standardize onboarding across the organization to allow students to easily move through different programs, for example from English to Women in Tech, or Youth Exchange to English to Women in Tech.

3. Improved Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) by strengthening our ability to collect and store data on how our students learn so that we can assess our impact and improve our programs.

4. Building community by expanding on the 1:1 nature of Paper Airplanes’    programs. Supported by best practices, the LMS will create a shared space for students, volunteers, and staff to engage and connect. The opportunity to connect and share experiences is an important contributing factor in well-being, retention, and success of both tutors and students. Particularly as our Student Advising program expands, the ability to share scholarships, work opportunities, and advice will be invaluable for our students. For programs like our IELTS course and Women in Tech, an LMS will give students the opportunity to interact between lessons. Our instructors will post discussion prompts, promote asynchronous conversations, and create opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback.