Case Study on education continuity in fragile settings. Learning from a tent: Noor’s journey to graduation in Gaza
When the war took her parents, her home, and her sense of safety, Noor was pulled from the rubble with only two things left to protect: her younger brothers and her future. She was 20 years old, displaced, grieving, and living in a tent. Still, she refused to let her education end. This is the story of how a physiotherapy student in Gaza completed her training through a phone, weak internet, and extraordinary determination, and how UNRWA’s Gaza Training Centre (GTC) adapted its entire teaching model so students like Noor could keep learning in the middle of a collapsing system. Noor is one of 21 physiotherapy students who completed their studies through this adapted model — even though 17 of them were displaced.
Noor had just exited her teenage years when the war took almost everything from her: her parents, her home, her sense of safety. She and her two younger brothers were pulled from under the rubble and forced to rebuild their lives in a tent in Zaytoon, moving from one temporary shelter to another as the fighting intensified. Electricity, internet, food, and safety were never guaranteed. In a moment when most students would have had to abandon their studies, Noor made a different choice: she kept going.
During this time the UNRWA’s Gaza Training Centre (GTC) reshaped its entire teaching model so students like her could continue learning in the middle of a collapsing system. With no stable electricity, no reliable internet, and no safe classrooms, the physiotherapy programme had to be reinvented almost overnight. UNRWA’s GTC instructors built a low‑tech, high‑care remote learning system designed for students living through war.
What learning looked like for Noor: Studying from a tent using only a mobile phone, downloading lessons whenever she could catch a signal, recording herself practicing physiotherapy techniques on her brothers, walking long distances to reach her clinical training site, completing assignments during brief moments of electricity, staying connected through Telegram groups when nothing else worked.
What GTC instructors did: sent daily and weekly updates through Telegram, shared explanations, practice questions, annotated screenshots, gave personalised feedback on videos students sent privately, used low‑bandwidth tools (Telegram polls, Google Forms) for exams, maintained constant communication to reduce fear and isolation.
When clinical training finally became possible again, Noor walked long distances to reach the physiotherapy unit at El Sahaba Complex. Despite the challenges, Noor completed all remote courses, finished her graduation project, passed 18 required courses, completed her clinical training at El Sahaba Complex, earned 92% in her On‑the‑Job Training, achieved results nearly identical to her pre‑war performance, and is now preparing for the national physiotherapy licensing exam.
Her words capture the heart of the experience: “Despite the bombings, hunger, and displacement, I wanted to continue. The support of my instructors and peers gave me strength. It made me feel that my education had not stopped.”
Case submitted by UNRWA.
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