Contextualised and Community-Oriented: Two C’s that are part of successful education interventionsWISE’s Niamh Whelan and Aurelio Amaral discuss the key steps in supporting impactful education projects that understand learner needs, build adapted and contextualised strategies and drive community-orientated collaboration.Understanding learners’ needs, crafting educational strategies adapted to those needs and leveraging the community to implement them are key ingredients of impactful education projects. Yet, in an attempt to expand to different countries and regions, innovators and social entrepreneurs might fall into the trap of “one-fits-all” types of solutions. This year’s six WISE Awards winning projects are good reminders that collaborative models with contextualised interventions make a difference in learning outcomes and are not a barrier to growth.Innovations highlighted in this year’s selection are impacting the lives of almost 30 million learners worldwide, those of whom are facing conflict and displacement, are in need of greater access to education, and more. In an era of polycrisis facing climate change, forced displacement, prevalence of social isolation and more, neoteric solutions to old- and new-age problems are ever needed.To push through such challenges, we have identified four key steps that can support projects in leveraging their own assets, specific to their contexts, to enhance teaching and learning within their communities, in the face of such problems to extend equity and access to education.EMPOWER COMMUNITY MEMBERS AS CATALYSTS OF CHANGEAn article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review acknowledges strengthening the capacity of a network and empowering community members as key actions to shaping neighbourhoods, and are key to sustaining community practice and integration. Nature-Based Education Networks by OpEPA offers spaces for integration and active collaboration between schools and local actors to appropriate green spaces and create nature-based learning communities in urban landscapes across Latin America. By leveraging school students and teachers as multipliers of good practices and ethical behaviour to tackle environmental and social challenges, the Network encourages stronger ties between local ministries, youth and public/private institutions to activate diverse learning communities alongside the appropriation of green spaces across cityscapes. In supporting community members as active voices of change, ensuring diverse representation amongst stakeholders can strengthen collaborative purpose and action.NaTakallam is a second strong example of diversity amongst stakeholders. In designing solutions that cater to displaced populations in partnership with K-12 institutions, this project leverages technology to tackle the challenge of millions of highly educated displaced persons and their host communities without access to income. Pedagogically, NaTakallam supports learning processes by providing input from a native speaker to their language programs, facilitating communicative sessions, and providing students with exposure to a range of dialects, all through the narrative of the refugee community. By leveraging the personal experiences of refugee tutors that work with NaTakallam , this project builds a platform for diversity, equity and inclusion in education, placing the refugee community at the heart of their work.CREATE ALIGNMENT WITH GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY PRIORITIESA recent UNESCO GEM report on Technology in Education reports that only half of countries have standards for developing teacher ICT skills, with teachers often feeling unprepared and lacking confidence in teaching with technology. In response to this challenge, Tekwill in Every School , an initiative in Moldova, has designed a national public private partnership that works to equip both teachers and students with practical skills on subjects related to jobs of the future. Courses on coding, software developmen...