Friends of Nafda- the Alternative Approach to Effective Education

What it reported doing in 2025

Nafda worked with 130 schools across Lebanon in different capacities, directly engaging 808 educators and 22,850 students. 2025 reflects a year of significant scale and adaptability, where nafda not only expanded its reach and deepened its impact, but also responded to emerging needsensuring that schools continued to serve as spaces for learning, well-being, and active citizenship. 1. Capacity Building (Principals & Educators) Continued delivering structured training, coaching, and peer learning to strengthen school leadership, governance, and transformation practices Supported schools in applying nafdas model across key areas: learning, values integration, and community engagement Across a core group of schools: 85% showed overall improvement in school transformation 89% advanced in student-centered learning approaches 92% strengthened values-based education practices Result: stronger leadership, improved school culture, and increased ability to sustain change 2. Citizenship & Youth Civic Engagement (Aal Seha) Expanded implementation of nafdas citizenship tool (Aal Seha) to 90 schools and 3 scout groups, reaching 7,519 students and training 103 facilitators Enhanced delivery through improved tool design and a junior version for younger students Enabled students to apply learning through: Mock elections and student-led governance initiatives Environmental and community-based campaigns Engagement with local stakeholders Result: students demonstrated increased agency, participation, and civic responsibility 3. School Transformation Projects Supported 42 school-led transformation projects connecting education to real-world needs, including: Well-being and psychosocial support initiatives Agripreneurship and innovation projects STEAM and innovation-focused learning across multiple schools Projects emphasized student ownership, teacher capacity, and community involvement Result: schools translated learning into practical, community-connected change 4. Emergency Response & Adaptation Beyond its core programmatic work, nafda operated in a context of escalating conflict and displacement in Lebanon during this period. In response, the organization adapted its approach to meet urgent needs within its school network. Key emergency response activities included: Providing psychosocial support activities to 628 students Training 22 principals and teachers to sustain well-being practices within schools Delivering emergency-responsive teaching webinars to 425 educators Facilitating trust-building and social cohesion activities: 900 participants engaged during the war across five locations 12,500 students and 190 teachers reached post-war through classroom-based activities These efforts aimed to ensure that schools remained safe, supportive environments, while maintaining continuity of learning and reinforcing social cohesion during a period of crisis.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 2.5%; rating input score 2
• Program expense ratio: 2.4%; rating input score 2

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
• Major donor itemization: Limited

Sustainability

• Operating margin: -2.1%; rating input score 25; 25th percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.21; rating input score 20; 20th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 74; 74th percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 63; 63rd percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: 100.8% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 37.6% per year; rating input score 100; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: -9.2% per year; rating input score 0; 11th percentile among comparable filings