Supporting refugee education with the SOK Foundation & UNICEF

War disrupts education at every level. For children displaced into new school systems, the ability to understand instructions, participate in class, and communicate basic needs becomes a prerequisite for learning. The SOK Foundation addresses this problem directly.

SOK supports Ukrainian refugee children by equipping teachers with tools designed for classrooms shaped by displacement. Working with the UNICEF Refugee Response Office in Poland, SOK created the Dictionary of Language of School Education to support Polish language acquisition in real school contexts. Through our Impact Program, we support this work by providing ElevenLabs technology at no cost, enabling an audio-first learning model built for scale and consistency.

Language as an educational dependency

In emergency education settings, language is infrastructure. Without access to spoken classroom language, students struggle to follow lessons, regulate behavior, or engage socially. This places additional strain on teachers and slows integration across the entire classroom.

The Dictionary of Language of School Education (JES) is a bilingual Polish-Ukrainian resource designed to address this gap. It covers subject-specific vocabulary, classroom instructions, school spaces, and emotional language - the terms students need to function day to day.

SOK developed JES in collaboration with the UNICEF Refugee Response Office in Poland to ensure alignment with international standards for education in crisis and displacement settings, and to make the tool usable across diverse school environments.

How ElevenLabs is used

ElevenLabs audio is the primary interface for JES. SOK uses a cloned voice from professional voice artist Róża Cieślińska-Dziękiewicz to deliver clear, natural pronunciation at scale. Vocabulary is introduced first through sound and visual context, then reinforced through interactive games and exercises, and only later supported by written text. This design reduces reliance on memorization and reflects how spoken language is acquired in practice, particularly for learners under cognitive and emotional stress.

The same audio is embedded throughout exercises and checkpoints, enabling repetition without additional teacher load.

Video overview of the dictionary

Impact to date

Since 2022, SOK has trained over 5.5k educators, reaching more than 100,000 children. Programs such as Minds&Hearts combine language learning with psychosocial skill development, supporting both teachers and students in high-pressure educational environments. To learn more about SOK Foundation's programs check our their website: https://fundacjasok.org.pl/

Why this partnership matters

SOK builds tools for urgency, scale, and real classroom constraints. Their collaboration with the UNICEF Refugee Response Office in Poland and the ElevenLabs Impact Program demonstrates how voice can reduce friction in learning systems under stress, and how to responsibly apply voice technology when access, comprehension, and reliability directly affect educational outcomes.