InZone is an academic center at the University of Geneva pioneering innovative approaches to higher education in communities affected by conflict and humanitarian crisis. InZone facilitates the delivery of contextualized, safe and inclusive tertiary education to refugee populations stranded in transit countries.
InZone has been for a decade a pioneer in developing and implementing blended learning and Connected Learning for refugees and is a founding member of the CLCC. Its dual nature as an academic and humanitarian program offers the advantage of developing academic courses that are, on the one hand, evidence-based and, on the other hand, responsive to students’ changing needs. The center distinguishes itself with its unique and innovative collaborated blended ecosystem.
This model brings together five main actors – academics, onsite facilitators, online tutors, course coordinators, and students. It allows for a high-quality learning journey through a collaborative problem-solving learning approach and targeted and student-centered support. In line with this approach, and in collaboration with other academic institutions, InZone is developing Certificates of Open Study (COS), exclusively aimed at refugees and people on the move. A COS is a new academic credit bearing format granted upon completion of a continuing education program that is made available to anyone, with no previous degrees required.
InZone’s approach takes into account the likelihood of refugees finding it more difficult to maintain continuity of study and pieces together portable credits creating a first stepping stone towards a degree. These credits conform to the European Credit Transfer System, making them internationally recognized. InZone is currently operational in Kenya (Kakuma refugee’s camp) and Jordan (Azraq refugee’s camp). In 2020 it was supporting around 130 students in 4 core disciplines; Health, Human Rights, Engineering and Humanitarian interpreting as well as 4 cross-cutting disciplines: Gender Studies and Community Mobilization, Economics and Management, Education and Learning Engineering and Language skills.
