In the Arab region, traditional education systems often lack sufficient resources and rely on outdated curricula, leaving many young people without the necessary educational support, especially if they face limited finances, gender-based discrimination, or displacement. Nafham is an innovative educational platform designed to overcome these challenges by providing free, accessible, high-quality educational content online, including on YouTube. The videos are a mix of those professionally created by Nafham’s own in-house content team, those curated from all over the wider web and deemed relevant to cover parts of the curriculum, and a third group they call Crowd-teach created by volunteers. Recognizing the widespread use of mobile devices in the region, Nafham developed a mobile app available for both Android and iOS devices to ensure that students can access educational content on the go. The app provides a wide range of interactive life skill courses, from programming to language learning, and even includes tutorials on writing a resume. Nafham engages the private and social sectors, it has been supported by venture philanthropy organizations like Alfanar, and in 2021, it was acquired by Tyro, an online tutoring platform, that offers paid private lessons, providing a revenue stream for the initiative.
Theory of Change
Leveraging technology and crowd-sourcing content to provide free and easily accessible educational material helps bridge the educational gap and empowers displaced, discriminated, and otherwise excluded students with the knowledge and skills necessary to attain future opportunities.
Activities
Nafham offers a vast library of video lessons that cover the curricula of different grades and countries in the Arab region. These lessons are created by experienced teachers and volunteers, ensuring that the content is both accurate and engaging. To enhance the learning experience, Nafham incorporates interactive tools such as quizzes, educational games, and discussion forums. Its software has audio, video, and text-based chats functions with instructors. An interactive whiteboard allows students to share their documents in real time, solve equations and more. These tools encourage active learning and allow students to test their understanding of the material. A homework help service allows students to ask questions and receive answers from a community of teachers and peers, fostering a collaborative learning environment. Nafham also offers paid lessons to help students prepare for various exams.
Results
Nafham has made a significant impact on education in the Arab region. To date, the platform has reached over 1 million students and 100+ professional teachers, providing more than 23,000 video lessons. With 6 million annual users and over 150 million views garnered on their video content, the platform has become a globally important educational resource.
