In July 1951, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was held in Geneva, where the term “refugee” was formally defined and the legal rights and obligations of states to protect refugees were agreed upon. Today this definition applies to any person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of their former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”
On World Refugee Day, celebrated every 20 June, ProFuturo reafirms its commitment to education, working to ensure a safe learning space for children by providing educational materials and other tools to facilitate learning in emergency situations and during prolonged crises.According to UNHCR data published earlier this month, by the end of 2024, there were more than 120 million people forcibly displaced worldwide due to persecution, conflict, human rights violations, events that severely disrupted public order and other forms of violence. Among them, 8.4 million are asylum seekers and more than 36 million are refugees.
In collaboration with partners such as UNHCR, Save the Children and Entreculturas, the programme is present in countries such as Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Jordan and Lebanon. On this last point, the work of the programme is especially intensive. Among the challenges set for 2025, ProFuturo aims to reach in this region 29 schools, more than 2,000 students and 60 teachers.
In addition, since 2019, it has been committed to the GRF (Global Refugee Forum), taking on the commitment to provide “educational technology for teaching and learning in refugee settings”, playing also a very active role in the Connected Education Working Group and in the Connected Education Challenge for Refugees, promoted by UNHCR.
