Supporting Education in Emergencies: UNICEF's School-in-a-Box Kit
UNICEF bundles essential education supplies for speedy delivery to children in emergencies to ensure they can keep learning. Learn what's inside each metal box.
Education is fundamental to children’s development, providing knowledge and skills for them to grow socially, emotionally and cognitively. Through learning, children have the chance to unlock and reach their maximum potential in life.
But many children are unable to access education during crises such as conflicts, epidemics and natural disasters. Crises not only interrupt children's education but can also reverse their progress. Without education, their future prospects become bleaker.
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Ensuring children can continue learning even in emergencies
Even during emergencies and in their aftermath, it is crucial that children’s learning is not compromised. With the School-in-a-Box, UNICEF helps ensure that children can continue their learning regardless of the circumstances.
Packed in a metal box — or a carton in some instances, to facilitate distribution — the kit is a portable classroom that can be set up in emergency settings. Since its content is not culturally specific, it can be used anywhere in the world.
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The kit contains 42 different school supplies, enough for 40 students and a teacher. Consumable items, such as pencils and erasers, are sufficient for a period of at least three months and some of the items, such as pens and paper, can be used by both the teacher and students.
The kit includes Braille-embossed supplies, such as a clock and posters, allowing all children, including those with visual impairments, to learn.
A first step toward restoring normalcy
In emergencies, education also supports recovery, providing children with a sense of normalcy that helps them cope with trauma. The School-in-a-Box contributes to re-establishing learning as the first step towards the restoration of normal schooling during and immediately after an emergency.
The kit can also be used in situations where a country suddenly faces an unexpected increase in the number of students and supplies are urgently needed; kits can be pre-positioned in countries where emergencies are more frequent, or they can be deployed on-demand from UNICEF’s strategically placed global supply hubs.
The lid can be used as a blackboard
The School-in-a-Box is also versatile. The waterproof metal box has padlocks that can be used to safely and securely store all supplies, and its lid can be transformed into a blackboard using paint and a brush, which are also supplied as part of the kit.
The kit is normally distributed to teachers, who are responsible for its safekeeping and for using its contents when they teach and distributing its contents to students.
Each kit comes as a durable, waterproof and lightweight aluminum box packed with the following materials to support lessons, art projects and related activities:
- notebooks and colored paper
- pencils, erasers and pencil sharpeners
- red, blue and black pens
- wax crayons and felt-tip markers
- rulers, a protractor and compass
- blackboard set squares for geometry lessons
- scissors and duct tape
- inflatable globe
- plasticized instructional posters (Roman alphabet, multiplication tables) that can be written on with markers and wiped clean
- slates and white pencils
- windup solar radio
- clock with Braille numbers for teaching time
- paint and a paintbrush for creating a blackboard on a wall or on the inside of the kit box lid, chalk and duster
- register for teachers to record student attendance
- armbands for teacher identification
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carrier bags
Inside a temporary classroom set up in the wake of Madagascar's June 2025 cyclone disaster, a young student engages with one of the items provided in each UNICEF School-in-a-Box kit. The educational supplies provided support learning through play and a return to normalcy while schools and communities recover from disasters. © UNICEF/UNI839950/Andrianantenaina
Learn more about how UNICEF supports children in emergencies
Another way to support: Shop for Inspired Gifts at the UNICEF Market — a $190 donation covers the cost of one School-in-a-Box kit
Portions of this article are based on a piece originally published by unicef.org
HOW TO HELP
There are many ways to make a difference
War, famine, poverty, natural disasters — threats to the world's children keep coming. But UNICEF won't stop working to keep children healthy and safe.
UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories — more places than any other children's organization. UNICEF has the world's largest humanitarian warehouse and, when disaster strikes, can get supplies almost anywhere within 72 hours. Constantly innovating, always advocating for a better world for children, UNICEF works to ensure that every child can grow up healthy, educated, protected and respected.
Would you like to help give all children the opportunity to reach their full potential? There are many ways to get involved.
