Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

AIR and Libraries Without Borders (LWB) are conducting two impact evaluations to investigate the psychosocial and educational impacts of the Ideas Box program on children in Jordan. We are conducting two nonexperimental impact evaluations to assess the additive effects of Ideas Box access on students’ psychosocial outcomes in the Danish Refugee Council Community Center, and an evaluation to determine the impact of fully integrating an LWB-managed Ideas Box into Johud’s nonformal education curriculum on students’ examination scores. The Ideas Box, implemented by LWB, is a portable media center and learning hub with context-specific content that aims to provide educational and cultural resources to vulnerable communities, including Syrian refugee children in the case of Jordan. In addition to the impact evaluation, AIR and LWB are conducting a process evaluation to investigate differences in the implementation and partnerships models of the two Ideas Boxes within Amman as well as the potential scalability and long-term sustainability of the program in Jordan and elsewhere.