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For UAE readers who have followed the work of the Varkey Foundation, the Global Teacher Prize and the wider education prize ecosystem launched out of Dubai, this week brought a striking new milestone. The inaugural Global Schools Prize, a $500,000 award given by the UAE-based Varkey Foundation in partnership with UNESCO, has been won by Lebanon's Alsama Project, a refugee-led education organisation that has kept more than 1,100 displaced Syrian and Palestinian teenagers in classrooms through two rounds of regional conflict.

The winner was announced at the Education World Forum in London by celebrated filmmaker, charity fundraiser and campaigner Richard Curtis, who named Alsama the standout school from nearly 3,000 applications and nominations across 113 countries. Curtis was joined on stage by Sunny Varkey, founder of the Varkey Foundation, the Global Schools Prize and GEMS Education, in presenting the award to Kadria Hussein, co-founder of Alsama.

A school that begins where most refugee programmes end

Most refugee education programmes focus on younger children, often because the policy and humanitarian infrastructure is more developed for that age group. Alsama, which means sky in Arabic, made a deliberate choice to do the opposite. Founded in 2020 to support just 40 teenagers in Beirut's Shatila refugee camp, the organisation focuses specifically on adolescents, an age group routinely excluded from formal education systems in displacement contexts.

The context is stark. In Lebanon, 85 per cent of Syrian refugees are unable to attend school, and fewer than 2 per cent of displaced Syrian youth complete secondary education. In Syria itself, around 8,000 schools have been destroyed by conflict. Against that backdrop, Alsama has built an accelerated education model specifically for teenagers whose schooling has been disrupted by war, displacement and poverty. Around 90 per cent of students arrive at Alsama unable to read, write or perform basic numeracy. Within six months, most can do all three.

Six years to university

The curriculum is built around the realities of students' daily lives. Beginners learn Arabic by reading road signs. Numeracy is taught through planning a weekly grocery budget in local markets. From that starting point, students can progress to university in around six years, roughly half the length of a traditional education pathway. The first cohort is due to graduate in July 2026, with students having already secured scholarships to institutions including the University of Cambridge, the University of Leicester and Arizona State University.

The organisation now operates four education centres in the Shatila and Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camps in Beirut, each home to around 40,000 refugees from Syria and Palestine, and a fifth centre in Homs, Syria. It is run largely by the communities it serves: 72 per cent of staff are refugees, 96 per cent come from refugee or local communities, and most senior leaders have refugee backgrounds.

Teaching through bombs

When violence escalated in Beirut in 2024, and again earlier this year, Alsama was one of Lebanon's only education providers to continue teaching without interruption. As many students fled to Syria, the organisation shifted immediately to online learning, distributed SIM cards through emergency fundraising to maintain connectivity, and set up temporary classrooms in displacement shelters. The continuity is the kind of operational resilience that most school systems in stable countries would struggle to match.

Each centre includes trauma-informed psychosocial support, full-time psychologists, centre supervisors, and weekly awareness sessions covering students' rights, healthy relationships, gender equality and personal safety. Alsama also works directly with families and communities to intervene when children are at risk of early marriage, child labour or abuse. According to the organisation, it has so far helped prevent 256 girls from early marriage, kept 278 boys out of child labour, and supported 66 students experiencing domestic or sexual abuse. Ninety-eight per cent of students report feeling safe at school, a striking figure in communities where violence and instability are everyday realities.

Cricket as a leadership tool

A defining and unusual feature of the Alsama model is cricket. Across more than 20 cricket hubs, boys and girls train together, building teamwork, discipline and confidence. Half of all Alsama cricket coaches are girls, directly challenging gender norms and creating visible leadership role models for younger students. Older students are also employed as junior coaches, librarians and teachers, providing safe income that reduces the economic pressures that can push children into labour or early marriage.

Voices from the ceremony

Speaking at the London ceremony, Sunny Varkey, founder of the Varkey Foundation, the Global Schools Prize and GEMS Education, congratulated Alsama on what he described as an extraordinary achievement that demonstrates the transformative power of schools. He spoke about innovation against the odds, courage under crisis, and an unshakeable belief in every child's potential, saying the project's work has created life-changing opportunities for teenagers excluded from education while strengthening entire communities. Recognising Alsama's work, Varkey added, was intended to inspire a global movement to scale the best ideas in education and reimagine learning for a world in constant change.

Meike Ziervogel, co-founder and CEO of Alsama Project, said winning the inaugural Global Schools Prize meant an enormous amount to the organisation and would give an international voice to its students. She expressed gratitude to the Varkey Foundation and the Global Schools Prize team for believing in Alsama's work, noting that refugee teenagers are too often overlooked. The recognition, she said, sends a clear message that their education, ambitions and futures matter and can help shape a more peaceful world. She added that what had started with 40 teenagers in Shatila in 2020 had grown into supporting more than 1,100 displaced young people across Lebanon and Syria, a trajectory only made possible because students and staff refused to let war and displacement end their education.

What the prize funds next

The $500,000 grand prize will now fund a second accelerated learning centre in Homs, Syria. The new centre will offer Arabic, English, maths, science, IT, financial literacy, professionalism and rights-based awareness sessions, alongside yoga and cricket. The expansion will allow hundreds more illiterate teenagers to begin the six-year pathway from foundational literacy to university-readiness or skilled employment.

Earlier this month, Alsama also won the Global Schools Prize category award for Overcoming Adversity, receiving an additional $50,000. The combined recognition brings $550,000 in funding to the organisation in the inaugural year of the prize.

The wider Varkey Foundation prize ecosystem

The Global Schools Prize joins the Global Teacher Prize and the Global Student Prize as a trio of awards run by the UAE-based Varkey Foundation. Together, the foundation describes the three as a trilogy celebrating educators, learners and schools as institutions of innovation and change, with a total prize pool of $1 million for the Global Schools Prize alone.

Nine other schools won category awards of $50,000 each: IIS Ettore Majorana in Italy for AI Transformation; Freedom International Schools in Kenya for Arts, Culture and Creativity; Escuela de Talentos Guanajuato Azteca in Mexico for Character and Values; LEAD 359 in the US for Global Citizenship and Peacebuilding; IES Carmen de Burgos Seguí in Spain for Health and Wellbeing; Suubi Community Primary and Secondary Schools in Uganda for SEND and Inclusive Education; Neeson Cripps Academy in Cambodia for STEM Education; Institución Educativa Comercial de Envigado in Colombia for Sustainability; and Reach Academy Feltham in the UK for Teacher Development.

Why this matters for UAE readers

For families and educators in the UAE, the prize is a useful reminder of how much of the global conversation about education innovation now runs through Dubai. The Varkey Foundation was established by the founder of GEMS Education, the world's largest operator of K-12 schools and a major presence across the UAE. The decision to award the inaugural Global Schools Prize to an organisation working in some of the most difficult conditions imaginable, rather than to a well-resourced school in a stable country, signals a particular view of what education innovation looks like: not the newest technology or the most polished facilities, but the most resilient and inclusive models of getting learning to children who would otherwise be left out.

For students in UAE schools, Alsama's story is also a reminder that the gap between a 15-year-old who has been displaced by war and one studying for IB exams in Dubai is in many ways a matter of circumstance rather than capability. Alsama's first cohort, students who arrived unable to read, are now heading to Cambridge.

Sources:

Khaleej Times, "From refugee camp to global stage: Lebanon's Alsama Project wins $500,000 education prize" by Nandini Sircar (May 19, 2026). https://www.khaleejtimes.com/uae/education/lebanon-alsama-project-wins-500000-global-schools-prize 

Gulf News, "UAE-based Varkey Foundation awards $500,000 Global Schools Prize to Lebanon's refugee-led project" by Sajila Saseendran (May 19, 2026). https://gulfnews.com/uae/education/uae-based-varkey-foundation-awards-500000-global-schools-prize-to-lebanons-refugee-led-project-1.500545926