Disaster Response Palestine Project #71933

Academy of Hope In Gaza

by smartAID in Hebrew is 'Ezra Chachama Laolam'

Project Report | Apr 27, 2026
Helping Gaza's Children

By Ron Zeltzer | COO

Over the past months, the GVC team has been working quietly on something that feels both urgent and deeply important.

In the heart of the North Al Mawasi Humanitarian Zone, where thousands of families have been displaced, a new space has come to life an Educational City built to restore something many children here have lost: stability, routine, and a sense of normal childhood.

At the center of this effort is the Mega Academy. It’s designed to reach up to 10,000 children every single day, making it one of the largest education recovery initiatives of its kind in the region. But beyond the scale, what matters most is what it gives each child who walks through its gates.

For many of these children, school has been interrupted for months, sometimes years. Here, they return to structured, full-day learning not just to catch up academically, but to rebuild focus, confidence, and connection with others. The classrooms are designed to be calm, supportive environments where children can begin to feel like students again, not just survivors of crisis.

Every child also receives a reliable daily meal. In partnership with World Central Kitchen, this has become a critical part of the day supporting not only physical health, but also the ability to concentrate, learn, and engage.

Just as important is the emotional support built into the campus. Many children arrive carrying trauma. Through on-site psychosocial care, group activities, and safe spaces they begin to regain a sense of safety, belonging, and emotional balance.

Basic pediatric services are also available on-site, ensuring that children have access to immediate care when needed, with direct connections to more advanced medical support when required. This creates continuity something that is often missing in crisis environments.

What we are seeing is more than an education program. It is a daily structure that brings back dignity, predictability, and hope not only for children, but for their families as well.

There is still a long way to go. But this is a meaningful step toward rebuilding a generation that has experienced far too much disruption.

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Dec 16, 2025
Opening New Schools

By Ron Zeltzer | COO

At dawn in southern Gaza, the doors of the first academy open.

Khan Younis One rises each morning like a steady heartbeat in a wounded place.

Children arrive in small clusters, some holding notebooks, others holding nothing at all but a sibling’s hand. This is the flagship campus the Khan Younis Jane Goodall Academy of Hope named for a woman who taught the world that healing begins with empathy. Inside, more than 2,000 children find something rare: routine. Teachers greet them by name, hot meals steam in the kitchen, and counselors sit ready to listen.

Paediatric staff move quietly between classrooms, and laughter soft at first, then louder spills into structured play spaces. With more than 30 dedicated staff members, the academy has become more than a school. It is a center of gravity, a place where care gathers and holds.

Not far away, Khan Younis Two carries the rhythm forward.

Here, another 2,000 children step into learning spaces built for consistency in a life shaped by disruption.

Many come from displaced families who have lost schools, meals, and the sense of community that once anchored them. This campus answers with dependable structure: lessons that begin on time, safe zones where children can breathe, and staff drawn from the local community who understand the weight these children carry. Each day is a quiet act of rebuilding of trust, of focus, of childhood itself.

As the surrounding neighborhoods grow denser with displacement, Khan Younis Three stands ready.

Serving 1,500 children, this academy was created to meet urgency with care. Supervised classrooms offer focus and calm, while recreational areas give space for movement and release. Health services remain close at hand, ensuring that children whose lives have been marked by trauma are not left to navigate it alone. Here, routine becomes medicine. Safety becomes language. The day unfolds with intention, reminding each child that they are seen and supported.

Further north, in the middle governorate, the story continues in Al Zawaidah.

The Zawaidah Academy of Hope serves another 1,500 children whose families have endured repeated displacement and long stretches without reliable services.

The campus opens onto child-friendly outdoor spaces and structured classrooms that mirror the core promise of the entire network: education paired with nutrition, psychosocial care, and primary medical support. For families constantly on the move, Zawaidah offers continuity a place that feels familiar even when everything else has changed.

Together, these academies form a living network.

They are not just sites on a map, but chapters in a shared story—of children returning to learning, of caregivers choosing compassion again and again, of hope taking shape in classrooms, meals, counseling sessions, and play. In places where the future has felt uncertain, these academies quietly insist on one truth: care, when given consistently, can change the course of a life.

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