The Orange Foundation is continuing its Education+ program, which is designed to help improve and diversify school education in Orange Group countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Learning is a powerful tool for empowerment and social cohesion, allowing each individual to realize their potential and contribute to society. We believe it is important to create the necessary conditions to promote and encourage the improvement of teaching and learning conditions for young primary and secondary school students in Africa and the Middle East.
Since 2014, the Orange Foundation has taken ambitious steps to improve education, particularly by using digital technology. Through the Digital Schools program, the foundation has donated more than 1,700 Digital Schools kits, providing educational and teaching content. Several hundred primary and secondary schools in 17 countries have benefited from these kits, improving the learning and teaching conditions of hundreds of thousands of students and teachers every year.
In 2025, we enhanced the program by adding extra resources in the form of back-to-school packs containing items such as schoolbags, notebooks, pencils, and pens.
After successfully distributing 35,000 kits in 16 countries in 2025, we are encouraged to continue and develop this initiative over the next two years.
Call for projects
The 2026 & 2027 call for projects (multi-year program) will include 4 funding and support options.
The Digital Schools program, which will celebrate its 12th anniversary in 2026, provides free equipment and digital educational content to primary and secondary school students in Africa. The program promotes and encourages access to basic knowledge and skills, such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, which open the door to more advanced lessons, including math, science, geography, history, and even foreign languages.
Orange Foundations and Orange subsidiaries have already deployed the program in 17 countries: Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Madagascar, Senegal, Tunisia, Mali, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Egypt, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Morocco, providing 1,700 kits that benefit nearly 600,000 students in hundreds of schools each year.
Today, we are launching the latest "Education+" call for projects. The call is open to Orange foundations and subsidiaries, which can request equipment donations and to NGOs, local and international associations, and companies, which can submit applications for the "Back to School" and "Educational Content" components in the following countries: Cameroon, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, Madagascar, Guinea Conakry, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Botswana, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco.
This call for projects is divided into four parts:
- Provision of equipment and digital resources (Digital School Kits) - exclusively reserved for Orange OMEA Foundations and subsidiaries,
- Financial support for training and program facilitation - exclusively reserved for Orange OMEA Foundations and subsidiaries,
- Back-to-school packs (including items such as schoolbags, notebooks, pens, and pencils) - for Orange OMEA Foundations and subsidiaries and external partners based in the country of operation (associations, NGOs, etc.)
- Design and production of royalty-free educational and teaching content - for Orange OMEA Foundations and subsidiaries and external partners based in the country of operation (associations, NGOs, etc.)
For general applicable terms, please refer to the Orange Foundation governance charter.
If your entity is selected, please refer to the terms and conditions which will be applicable: Philanthropy agreement convention outside Europe. We need you to proceed to a review of this document before the selection process.
Veuillez noter que vous vous inscrivez dans le cadre d’un mécénat et vous engagez, à ce titre, à nous fournir ces documents après votre sélection : un bilan d’activité, une attestation d’utilisation des fonds ainsi qu’un reçu fiscal.
Only Orange Foundations and subsidiaries in the countries listed above may submit a request for an equipment donation. Each of our country entities will coordinate and consolidate requests for equipment donations from schools.
Therefore, schools, organizations, NGOs, and other partners must contact the Foundation's local office in their country to submit a request for equipment, which will also be reviewed by the appropriate regulatory authorities in each country.
The Digital Schools kit that will be provided in 2026 should either be used to replace obsolete kits or to equip new schools. Particular attention will be given to countries in the process of deployment.
The Digital Schools Kit includes:
5 laptops + 1 4G Raspberry Pi server, 10 tablets with Android 10.0, 10 protective cases, 10 headsets, 6 electric multi-sockets, 2 dustproof cases with padlocks, 1 projector, 1 HDMI cable, 1 screen, 1 Bluetooth speaker, 1 solar charging kit with USB multi-socket, 1 SD card (200 GB) which, after downloading, provides a very wide range of local and international educational content for each of the schools in the program.
The value of each kit is estimated at €3,570 excluding delivery and €4,500 including delivery/logistics costs.
A maximum of 20 kits will be provided per country in 2026.
Eligibility criteria
- Describe the principles for implementing donations of Digital Schools kits for the 2026-2027 period, including the list of beneficiary schools for 2026 and intentions regarding activation and communication
- Specify the expected and projected number of kits for 2026 and 2027, respectively
- Provide the 2023-2025 Digital Schools activity report
- Create a project schedule from the date of kit receipt (early September) to December 2026.
- Provide an overall budget for the entire operation
Funding for training and program coordination costs is also available on request (10K€ maximum), to encourage all initiatives enabling greater adoption and buy-in from teachers and students for academic success.
In this context, in addition to the costs that may be incurred by the educational coordinator and/or a partner NGO/association, for the 2026 call for projects, we also require an Orange employee to sponsor each school. This ensures that the equipment is installed and used correctly, and that the results achieved by using this equipment, in addition to the work done by the educational coordinator, are measured.
Eligibility criteria
- Describe the role and activities of the educational coordinator with regard to training and explain why funding is necessary
One of the criteria for inequality in access to education is the lack of basic equipment needed to pursue education after primary school. The Orange Foundation is committed to reducing this form of inequality by providing several thousand students in public primary schools with their back-to-school kits, which consist of various basic items (bag, notebooks, pens, etc.) to give them the best conditions for learning.
Orange Country Foundations and associations/NGOs are invited to propose and detail the implementation of an operation to donate "school supplies kits" primarily to the thousands of children in the Orange Foundation's Digital Schools network.
Eligibility criteria
- Outline your strategy for donating back-to-school kits for the start of the 2026 school year, with priority given to students in the Orange Foundation's Digital Schools.
- Propose a back-to-school kit that includes at least: a backpack, notebooks, pens, pencils, an eraser, a sharpener, and a ruler/square/protractor with Orange Foundation branding.
- Estimate the value in euros of this kit, purchased locally (no imports).
- Confirm that the items in the kit will comply with Orange's local CSR purchasing policy.
- Propose the number of packs needed to carry out a large-scale campaign that will have a major impact on the Orange Foundation's Digital Schools network.
- Provide a list of the schools and the number of students in the Orange Foundation Digital Schools network that will benefit, as well as a list of other schools/students that will benefit.
- List the eligibility criteria that will be used to select the students who will receive this kit.
- Provide details about the logistics of distributing these kits, as well as plans for special events and communications related to this campaign.
- Draw up a project schedule between the date of receipt of funds (early July) and December 2025.
- Draw up a global budget for the entire campaign (purchase of items, creation of kits, distribution, events, communication, etc.).
A maximum of 2,000 Back-to-School kits/year will be provided per country in 2026 and 2027.
The call for projects for the "Content" segment, which is intended to supplement our educational materials in primary schools in Africa, is open to everyone (publishers, designers, businesses, associations, etc.).
This year, we want to enrich our Raspberry Pi servers (and their SD cards) with new educational content to encourage the teaching of basic “reading, writing, arithmetic” skills, in addition to tools and programs to support primary and early secondary education in all subjects in local languages.
Therefore, we will prioritize publishers and partners in countries that can offer innovative, original primary and early secondary school educational content tailored to OMEA countries and written in their local languages.
Additionally, to promote learning and awareness related to technological advances and their applications, we are also opening the application process up to content providers seeking funding to develop and/or transfer rights to content related to subjects such as AI and online safety.
This content must be copyright-free and made available at no cost for educational use, with no geographic restrictions for end beneficiaries, whether online or offline.
The content selected and financed by the Orange Foundation will also be displayed and available on an online platform (CardShop by the Kiwix Foundation) accessible to our educational coordinators in each country so that they can customize their SD cards depending on the actual needs in each region.
- The content proposed may be dynamic, interactive and fun,
- The content must be available in both online and offline versions (the offline version must be compatible with the platform and the Raspberry Pi language),
- The content is copyright free with no geographic restrictions,
- Use of the content is free-of-charge and open to all.
The maximum amount of funding available for each project is €15,000.
Organizations eligible to apply for Digital Schools Kits and financial support for training and facilitation as part of the Education+ Program
- Les Fondations et structures Orange de chacun des 17 pays de la géographie Orange Afrique et Moyen Orient.
Organizations eligible to apply for financial support for Back to School operations and educational and teaching content.
- Les Fondations et structures Orange de chacun des 17 pays de la géographie Orange Afrique et Moyen Orient.
- Associations et organisations non gouvernementales basées dans un ou plusieurs des 17 pays de la géographie Orange Afrique et Moyen Orient
Documents to include in the application:
- Detailed presentation of the 2026 Education+ project and projections for 2027 (.doc or .ppt)
- Digital Schools 2024-2025 program report (for Orange Country Foundations)
- Back to School 2025 report (for Orange Country Foundations)
- Association/foundation/organization status
- Association/foundation/organization budget
- The latest audit report
- A list of the actions funded by the Orange Foundation over the last 3 years for associations/foundations/organizations that have already received support.
Useful information for project applications
Useful information for project applications: Multi-year: 2026 + 2027
Duration of support: the project will run for a maximum of 24 months between September 2026 and June 2028 (specify project developments over the entire period and forecast budgets over the two years.) An assessment and review by the selection committee (March 2027) will be necessary for a multi-year renewal.
Schedule:
- Start: January 30, 2026
- End: March 6, 2026
- Publication of results: April 2026
List of 17 Orange countries in Africa and the Middle East
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, CAR, DRC, Egypt, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Jordan, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tunisia.