Education Isn’t a Luxury — It’s Quiet Resistance: Marwa Zahr on Learning, Hope, and Building EdTech that Survives a War

What if school is the thing that keeps a child alive inside?

In this conversation, Marwa Zahr — Implementation & Practitioner Lead at World Child Alliance and 2024 Yidan Prize laureate — shares a rare, honest look at education in the harshest places on earth and the EdTech choices that actually work there.

Marwa’s story starts before her own: with her mother, a ninth-grader in Lebanon in 1981, whose schooling ended when the windows shook and classmates stopped showing up. “Her greatest loss wasn’t safety or money. It was her education.” That conviction — my children will never stop learning — flowed to Marwa, through the 2006 bombings, and again last year during fresh attacks. In every crisis, she saw the same pattern: students still turning up, teachers still unlocking classrooms, parents asking the only question that matters — When can our children go back to school?

Education as normalcy — and resistance

Marwa calls education “a strong weapon with a longer-term impact.” It doesn’t stop missiles, but it stops something just as dangerous: the normalization of violence. One refugee girl told her, “When I can read, no one can lie to me.” In a single sentence: literacy is agency.

Debunking the big myths

Two myths show up again and again:

1. “In conflict, all people need is food and shelter.” True, those are baseline needs — but learning restores routine and dignity, which stabilizes families and communities.

2. “People in crisis don’t want change.” That’s distance talking. On the ground, you see hunger to learn and rebuild — parents sharing phones, kids walking to class under air-raid sirens, students turning peer mentors.

What works in EdTech when nothing works

Marwa helps lead Can’t Wait to Learn — tablet-based, game-driven learning now operating in eight countries. The secret isn’t the app. It’s the operating model:

• Co-creation, not copy-paste. Children, teachers, and local artists shape characters, visuals, and storylines. Ministries map content to national curricula. Authenticity + alignment beat “universal” every time.

• Context first, tech second. Solar-powered kits in low-electricity regions. Offline gameplay by default. Device-agnostic distribution for Ukraine’s scattered learners. Group-based models where 100+ students share a classroom.

• From innovation to integration. The goal is handover, not perpetual pilots. Ukraine is moving to full ministry ownership; in Uganda, district governments manage planning, data, and reporting.

• Costing is a feature. Value-for-money analysis is baked in so ministries can budget for scale. If it can’t live in the system, it won’t last.

Is this just a band-aid?

Marwa is clear: teaching a child to read during war doesn’t legitimize conflict — it prevents the next generation from accepting it as normal. Education keeps minds alive long enough for peace to be possible.

Funding, priorities, and accountability

Yes, money often comes from the Global North. But priorities are set locally: learning poverty, conflict impact, and demand on the ground. Ministries aren’t “stakeholders”; they’re co-owners. Accountability flows to one group only: the children.

The question we don’t ask enough

In EdTech we obsess over platforms, pipelines, and pilots. Marwa asks us to bring the conversation back to the end users: How do children experience these tools? What do they want? How do they feel?

She closes with Fatima’s story — a Syrian girl who fled war to a tent in Lebanon and found Can’t Wait to Learn just as talk of early marriage began. Access to reading and math became her turning point. Not a fairy tale — a fork in the road. Multiply that by millions and you see why Marwa still believes hope is practical.

Why this conversation matters

If you build for schools, fund education, or simply want to understand where EdTech truly changes lives, Marwa offers a blueprint: co-create, align with systems, design for the worst conditions, and plan for handover from day one. And never forget: the classroom is more than a classroom — it’s a shelter for the mind.

🎧 Watch/listen to the full episode on YouTube.

💬 What’s one belief about education in crisis you’re rethinking right now?