COVID-19, growing conflicts, and natural disasters have disrupted the lives of children around the world, interrupting optimal child development. Colors of Kindness empowers children in low-resource settings through holistic SEL embedded into education. Our programming provides access to a healthy, stable environment that improves a child’s ability to stay engaged and process information.
Aiming to improve children’s 1) social and emotional skills, 2) wellbeing, and 3) academic outputs, teachers are trained on SEL fundamentals and implementation of this EdTech model. The program provides SEL curriculum via audio podcasts that are embedded within an interactive digital workbook with visual aids that feature our culturally sensitive, gender neutral blobs. With 10, 16, or 18 week adaptations, children learn fundamentals of SEL. The intersection of these themes and activities reflects the growing need for childhood pedagogies to include human-centered approaches integrating social, emotional, cognitive, and physical aspects of learning. Each week, activities include an opening exercise, breathwork, a main activity (i.e., Emotions Charades or Dream Mapping), a yoga pose, a check-in using our emotions thermometer, and a closing gratitude practice. Children are also prompted to complete a challenge, which aims to give them a task to focus on throughout the week.
Colors of Kindness was born from UNHCR's HEA COVID 19 Challenge, and piloted in Bangladesh in Bangla & Rohingya with 137 children, including a high percentage of girls and Rohingya refugees. Our initial findings indicated a 16.5% increase in SEL competency, and 99% increase in mood and positive outlook amongst the children. It was localized/translated into Spanish, French, and Arabic, and a workbook adaptation was downloaded in 175 countries. The program was also piloted in Uganda, Greece, and the US -- with the Greek Ministry of Education requesting programing be made available to all schools in the country as of Sept 2022.
The program is available under a CC-BY-NC-ND-International 4.0 License at https://colorsofkindness.org/ for non commercial use only. Given the nature of the trauma sensitive content, the program is designed to safeguard the children, and does NOT allow for derivatives to be made. Localization and training are suggested, so please email info@amalalliance.org for more information.
