For the past year, Katie Zaniboni has volunteered in Sofia, Bulgaria, tutoring refugee children aged 4 to 14 from a wide variety of backgrounds and with different native languages. It’s a challenging task, but there’s one added element that makes the job even harder: Zaniboni, an engineer, has no formal teaching training.
“I go on Google, I get on existing platforms out there for stay-at-home moms or teachers themselves, but all of this is lacking context for how to teach at a refugee camp,” Zaniboni said in a recent phone interview. “I began thinking about volunteers who are trying to teach in difficult conditions with children who haven’t been in schools for long periods of time and the need I identified, basically, is a lot of the volunteers we find are unqualified.”
So Zaniboni devised a potential solution to aid unprepared teachers in refugee camps or centers: an open source, online platform to connect volunteers with professional teachers worldwide to share curriculums. The platform would also offer space for teachers who want to volunteer virtually, but cannot physically go and work with refugees.
About the author
Amy Liebermanamylieberman
Amy Lieberman is the U.N. Correspondent for Devex. She covers the United Nations and reports on global development and politics. Amy previously worked as a freelance reporter, covering the environment, human rights, immigration, and health across the U.S. and in more than 10 countries, including Colombia, Mexico, Nepal, and Cambodia. Her coverage has appeared in the Guardian, the Atlantic, Slate, and the Los Angeles Times. A native New Yorker, Amy received her master’s degree in politics and government from Columbia’s School of Journalism.
