When Schools become Shelters: Bridging gaps in the HDP Nexus through conflict sensitive Peace Education in Lebanon

In this blog, Layal Assaad, Country Director, International Alert Lebanon and Ruth Simpson, Peace Education Expert, demonstrate how an HDP nexus approach – rooted in system leadership – frames training and ongoing support in peace education for teachers, with positive and encouraging results for learners in a severely challenging context of various and protracted violence.

The education system in Lebanon has been subjected to ongoing and successive crises and conflicts. These have deepened and compounded existing inequities and systemic issues. Waves of conflict have forced over half a million students out of school and stalled education for a significant proportion of them. In 2024, over 70% of public schools were non-operational, with many transformed into shelters for the over 1 million displaced people. This situation has only worsened with the continuing humanitarian crisis spurred by conflict. 

The situation spiraled further on March 2, 2026, as the conflict escalated into a full-scale war that sparked an acute humanitarian crisis across the country. The challenges faced by children, parents, teachers and the whole education system in Lebanon are unprecedented, making the integration of a Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus approach more urgent than ever. Education with a focus on wellbeing, psychosocial support and community can provide children with a safe space, despite the turmoil around them.  

However, in a protracted crisis like Lebanon’s, education is routinely treated as a secondary priority – a downstream service to be restored only after humanitarian stability returns. Acute humanitarian needs are highest on the agenda framed as in tension with more ‘longterm’ development and peacebuilding goals.   

In this context, and despite the compoundeding crises in Lebanon- including conflict, displacement, economic collapse, and severe stress on schools- educators continue to teach across formal and non-formal (NFE) settings, increasingly prioritizing wellbeing, nonviolence, and peace. 

The Double Burden of Violence on Children 

Children are bearing the brunt of the immediate impacts of bombardments and displacement. More than 370,000 children have been displaced during the latest conflict alone, severely impacting their physical and mental health. This direct exposure to war compounds a long-standing culture of violence that permeates children’s daily lives and reflects heavily in their educational environments.  

Research on violence against children conducted by International Alert and its local partners highlights a double burden of violence: 

• Systemic in-School violence: Students in both public schools and non-formal education (NFE) centers report widespread instances of severe verbal abuse and physical corporal punishment applied by overstretched teachers as a form of discipline.  

• Conflict-driven environmental violence: In NFE centers situated within highly marginalized areas, 3 out of 4 children aged 7–12 years had witnessed direct violence around them in the 12 months preceding the study. 93% of these children regularly witness violence in the streets, informal settlements, and temporary shelters.  

As a longstanding regional pioneer, Lebanon continues to advance national educational policy. In December 2025, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) launched “The School of Citizenship” to pilot UNESCO’s Recommendation on Education for Peace. Through its latest strategy, MEHE is taking decisive steps to institutionalize peace education nationwide, beginning in the 2026–2027 school year, from the earliest stages of learning, and focus on nonviolence, and social cohesion. These structural efforts are regularly derailed by active conflict and underfunding. Therefore, addressing the psychological and behavioral impacts of this dual violence cannot wait for peace to arrive; it must be built within the classroom today.  

Lebanon’s Commitments to Education for Peace 

While peace education in Lebanon was long treated as a high-level aspiration, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) has taken decisive institutional steps to embed it within the formal system. In 2026, MEHE formally integrated Social Cohesion into its strategic framework, paving the way for a revamped national curriculum centered on peace education—set to officially launch in the 2026–2027 scholastic year starting with Kindergarten (KG) classes. This curricular shift builds on earlier groundwork, such as the December 2025 rollout of the “School of Citizenship” model aligning with UNESCO guidelines, cementing a nationwide commitment to institutionalize peace, nonviolence, and social cohesion from the earliest stages of learning.  

These structural efforts are regularly derailed by active conflict and underfunding. Therefore, addressing the psychological and behavioral impacts of this dual violence cannot wait for peace to arrive; it must be built within the classroom today.  

The Dual Role of Teachers: Allies and Adversaries to Peace 

In this context, our research and operational field experiences in Lebanon highlight the complex role of educators: they can either positively support social cohesion and violence prevention or inadvertently replicate and normalize violence within the classroom.  

Systemic structural gaps, missing funding, a lack of coherent policy implementation, and low qualification levels leave teachers poorly equipped to manage highly traumatized classrooms. Severe violent discipline by educators remains the primary operational barrier to cultivating a genuine culture of peace. Because teachers are on the frontlines of this stress, targeted, practical interventions that alter their classroom management methodologies have become the necessary focal point for meaningful intervention.  

Violent discipline by educators remains a barrier to cultivating a culture of peace. To address violence, bullying, and corporal punishment by staff in schools, International Alert and its partners developed a series of practical, tailored toolkits for educators aiming to transform schools from places of conflict into safe learning environments.  

International Alert’s Response: Toolkits for Change 

International Alert’s peace education programming in Lebanon supports the HDP nexus by addressing the root causes of violence and social fragmentation in schools and NFE settings, which reflect broader societal tensions and conflicts (both amongst Lebanese communities and between Lebanese and non-Lebanese communities). Through a contextually rooted, holistic, cross-sectoral approach, International Alert collaborates with local and national education and child protection actors to design participatory, community-based programs that foster social cohesion, reduce violence, and build inclusive school environments. By equipping teachers, parents, and students with conflict resolution skills and promoting tools like the Social Cohesion Toolkit, the work seeks not only to mitigate immediate risks (such as bullying, gender-based violence) but also strengthens long-term resilience. It bridgeshumanitarian aid and protection for vulnerable children with development (through improving education systems) and peacebuilding (building trust and dialogue across divided communities). 

This work has demonstrated a range of impacts since its inception in 2015. It has been shown to increase resilience and help children and young adults cope with trauma and manage emotions, significantly reducing stress and supporting non-violent behaviour, reducing risks of young people engaging in violence. Effective initiatives share common characteristics: focusing on child-centred, values-based approaches that encourage peaceful interaction and non-violence and emphasise human rights and self-care to help children and young people to navigate and cope with the impact of war. 

 These toolkits have been implemented across both formal public schools and non-formal education centres in Lebanon, supported by tailored teacher training and ongoing accompaniment. More than 320 teachers were trained and applied activities with students across 28 public schools, strengthening their ability to manage classrooms in more inclusive and effective ways and improving relationships with students.  

Evidence from implementation shows that most students reported a stronger sense of belonging to their schools, alongside noticeable reductions in experiences of violence and bullying. Developed in collaboration with and endorsed by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, these tools have demonstrated their relevance and potential for wider adoption within the education system. By equipping educators with practical tools and approaches, these efforts contribute to creating safer learning environments while supporting broader social stability in communities affected by the current situation. 

 Grounding the Nexus: Peace Education as a Resilience Anchor 

International Alert’s work in Lebanon since 2015 proves that structured, trauma-informed peace interventions build psychological resilience, help youth cope with trauma, and drastically reduce the risk of young people engaging in community violence. Rather than an optional add-on, embedding peace into education is a systemic necessity to protect an entire generation at risk. In the face of ongoing crises, and building on the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE)’s efforts to institutionalize this approach by making social stability and cohesion the cornerstone of its national strategy- operationalizing the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus across three vital pillars: 

 – Humanitarian: Delivers immediate, life-saving psychosocial support, protection, and safe learning environments to displaced and war-affected children. 

– Development: Equips formal and non-formal educators with sustainable pedagogical tools, institutionalizing long-term teacher capacities within national ministerial systems. 

– Peace: Directly breaks localized cycles of violence and drives MEHE’s strategic priority ofsocial cohesion by de-escalating localized tensions, preventing youth recruitment into armed factions, and bridging divides across fractured communities. 

Without sustained investment tying these three pillars directly to national systems, localized peacebuilding efforts will remain fragmented, accelerating the risk of generational harm and deeper sociopolitical divisions. 

International Alert’s programming in Lebanon demonstrates that since 2015, structured peace interventions have built psychological resilience, helped youth process trauma, and significantly mitigated the risk of community violence. In the face of compounding crises, trauma-informed education grounded in nonviolence is an urgent systemic necessity. 

Conclusion: Lessons for the global community 

The experience of Lebanon offers urgent lessons for other conflict-affected contexts globally. In times of acute crisis, divisions within education systems frequently mirror and reinforce active conflict lines. Without deliberate, context-specific efforts to integrate conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding, schools risk cementing the very geopolitical tensions they are meant to heal. Breaking cycles of violence necessitates a cross sectoral approach that prioritizes education that not only delivers learning but offers safety in humanitarian crises, whilst building foundations for development and catalyzing peace. 

 For global policymakers, international donors, and practitioners, the HDP Nexus imperative is clear: we must move beyond treating education merely as an emergency logistics response. True resilience requires re-centering education around human rights, fully equipping educators at the frontlines, and ensuring that schools serve as operational anchors of safety, developmental progress, and long-term community cohesion.  

Author Information: 

Layal Assaad, Country Director International Alert Lebanon, has over 15 years of experience in social stability, conflict sensitivity, peace education and evidence-based programming to drive sustainable impact in Lebanon and the region. 

Ruth Simpson, Peace education Expert, has over 15 years of peacebuilding experience working which includes working with education partners to co-design peace education and psychosocial programmes in conflict settings.