Idea Labs are learning centers where educators and learners experience cutting-edge learning tools and pedagogies.

 

The objective is to empower local communities to become nothing but their best selves through innovative and immersive education. Our aim is for each Idea Lab to become community owned and by its fourth year of operation. 

 

Idea Labs is a pure voluntarily-run project and it was the first initiative of Without Borders. We started off as a simple English teaching program with the support of a driven team of volunteers and absolutely no monetary support. Today the lab offers a comprehensive five staged curriculum focused on three key competencies:

 

• Communication skills. (English)

• Leading Change.

• Creative and Critical Thinking.

 

With the span of time, Idea Labs emerged into a set up that provided opportunities for the local youth to take leadership, contribute to their own community and discover their true skills in further inspiring their younger generations. The unique feature about Idea Labs is that the students are not divided into classes based on their age, but based on their skill and actual capabilities. A skill level test is conducted to ascertain the class level of a new student. There are five levels;

 

• Settlers (Level 1)

• Explorers (Level 2)

• Innovators (Level 3)

• Transformers (Level 4)

• Trailblazers (Level 5)

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Idea Labs includes a library facility, maintained and run by the students of the facility itself. It serves both the students and their parents to develop the habit of reading and expanding their knowledge horizons. 

 

Currently we have 3 Idea Lab centers. They are Deraniyagala, Maradana and Liberia. Young students of Idea Labs who have completed the program are now also working as community teachers in the same facility. 

 

Just last year we started training other passionate and driven teams just like ours to set up and run their own Idea Labs. Our first partnership was with the SocialService.lk and this year we partnered with the Warehouse Project in Maradana who are currently incorporating our curricula into the programs they run. We strongly believe that our impact and outreach is amplified by the exchange of ideas and expertise between like minded individuals. This is exactly what we’re envisioning - to pass over our learnings, resources and training expertise to others like us.

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