At the close of 2023, Giga made a Mapping Refugee Schools pledge, committing its expertise to help map refugee-hosting schools globally to ensure they are identified and included in national connectivity plans
In partnership with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the pledge is part of Giga’s mission to connect all schools to the internet by 2030.
Of the world’s 36.4 million refugees who are forced to flee their homes to escape conflict and persecution, 14.8 million are school-aged children who lack the same sustained access to high-quality connected education as their peers in the global community.
Giga maps refugee-hosting schools as a first step leading to connecting schools to the internet. In Africa, for example, Giga has helped connect 13 refugee-hosting schools in Rwanda and another 41 in Kenya, where it plans to add 53 refugee-hosting schools in 2024. The pledge was made to both ITU’s Partner2Connect Digital Coalition and to the UNHCR’s Global Compact on Refugees.