Kaya

What Kaya is

Kaya is a free course catalog for people who work in, or want to join, the humanitarian sector. Its home page calls it "a global learning platform that offers accessible, high quality and contextually relevant learning opportunities for the humanitarian sector - for free!", and the site describes itself as "the global learning platform of the Humanitarian Leadership Academy", with "both online and in-person learning opportunities, which are completely free to access." The footer explains the ownership: the Humanitarian Leadership Academy is part of the Save the Children Fund, a charity registered in England and Wales and in Scotland, with its registered office in London. The platform runs on Moodle Workplace, as the "Powered by" line on every page states, and the interface switches between English, Spanish, French and Arabic.

Kaya serves two readers. An individual aid worker, volunteer or student registers for free and takes courses. An organization can also use Kaya to host its own training, which is why the platform belongs among business learning systems as well as course catalogs.

What a learner gets

Formats

The site lists what a learner can reach: "Online self-directed courses and pathways", "MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)", "Webinars (streamed film of events that you can access from your phone or computer)", "Information and registration for face-to-face workshops and events", "Videos, documents and resources" and "Games, quizzes and assessments". The catalog's format filter puts numbers on that list: 819 online self-directed items, 55 learning pathways, 22 webinars, 18 online facilitated sessions, 13 blended programs that mix online and in-person learning, 10 face-to-face events, and one MOOC. The same filter shows 72 digital badges, 44 documents, 35 videos, 8 games, 4 chatbots and 2 immersive learning or virtual reality pieces. Self-paced online study is the bulk of the offer; live and in-person learning exists, but on a much smaller scale, and the main menu carries a Calendar for scheduled events.

Topics

The catalog is organized under five headings, with these counts in the filter: Humanitarian Essentials (591), Programmatic Support (587), Management Essentials (465), Technical Sectors (454) and Safety and Security (158). Below them sit narrower subjects. Under Humanitarian Essentials, "Principles, practices and standards" has 321 items, Accountability 180 and International humanitarian law 19. Management Essentials covers project management (122), communication and language skills (113), leadership skills (106), budgets and finance (71) and staff welfare (70). Programmatic Support runs from program design (243) and monitoring and evaluation (128) to information management and technology (104), logistics (74) and fundraising and donor management (31). Technical Sectors includes disaster management and risk reduction (145), protection (143), cash and voucher assistance (75), food security and nutrition (79), psychosocial and psychological first aid (69) and water, sanitation and hygiene (64). Safety and Security splits into health and safety (82) and security (53).

Languages

The interface comes in four languages, but the course library goes further. The language filter shows 492 items in English, 111 in French, 97 in Arabic, 89 in Spanish, 53 in Ukrainian, 47 in Polish, 41 in Romanian, 21 in Turkish and 10 in Portuguese, with a few items each in Bangla, Japanese, Russian, Nepali, Urdu, Kiswahili and others. For a field team that works in French or Arabic, that depth matters more than the headline catalog size.

Who provides the courses

Kaya hosts courses from a long list of providers. The Humanitarian Leadership Academy itself supplies 420 items and Save the Children 283. Other large contributors in the provider filter include World Vision (191), the FIELD Programme (140), CALP Network (64), Learning Pool (58), the International Rescue Committee (56), INEE (55), The MHPSS Collaborative (55), Unicef (48), Humanity & Inclusion (46), the IKEA Foundation (45), the University of Geneva (43), War Child (43) and the DHL Academy of Humanitarian Logistics (34). BBC Media Action, UNHCR, Oxfam and the International Committee of the Red Cross also appear. A learner can filter the catalog by topic, language, format, provider, region and device compatibility.

Mobile and offline learning

The site says Kaya "is designed to be accessed from phones, tablets, laptops and PCs", and a Kaya Mobile app is available from Google Play and the Apple App Store. The compatibility filter marks 841 items as tablet-ready, 812 as smartphone-ready and 576 as available offline, which is the figure a field worker with patchy connectivity will care about most. The region filter tags 893 items as global, with smaller sets for Africa (22), Asia and the Pacific (21), the Middle East (21) and Latin America and the Caribbean (11).

Badges and certificates

Courses award digital badges and certificates. The course support form on a course page lists "I am unable to redeem my certificate" and "I am unable to redeem my badge" among its support categories, next to "The course is not recognizing my progress". The site names no accrediting body for these certificates.

For organizations

The home page's "Your organisation" panel says: "In addition to the free learning opportunities that we offer to individuals on Kaya, we also offer a range of solutions that will help your organisation to curate, create and share your own high-quality learning." The About menu links an "Organisational solutions" page for the details.

A course page on the site shows what that looks like in practice. The "CTG e-learning portal" is an organization's own training space inside Kaya, hidden from the public catalog and marked with CTG as provider. It opens with "Welcome to CTG Learning" and is split into sections for a CTG Onboarding Pass, Duty of Care, Health & Wellbeing, Further Learning, Further COVID-19 Resources and Support, followed by mandatory training for UNICEF consultants, a UNICEF module on prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment, IOM micro modules on PSEA and a resit of the mandatory UNHCR PSEA training. The portal lists its own course support email and tells staff they can also take courses on the Kaya mobile app, and that "Some of the courses are available in French, Spanish or Arabic." For an NGO that needs onboarding and compliance training for staff and consultants, this is the model: a private section on a platform its people may already use. The site does not publish prices or terms for these organizational solutions.

Access and support

Visitors can browse the catalog with guest access and "Register for free" to enroll. Help starts on a "Need help?" page of frequently asked questions, and a quick start guide is available in English, Spanish, French and Arabic. On a course page, a support form routes a request to the course administrator once the learner picks a category, from certificate and badge redemption to content questions and feedback.

Who it suits

Kaya suits aid workers, NGO staff, volunteers and students heading into humanitarian work who want free, sector-specific training, from humanitarian principles and accountability to logistics, cash assistance and psychosocial support. Learners who work in French, Arabic, Spanish or Ukrainian will find a real body of material in those languages, and staff in the field benefit from the large share of courses that work offline on a phone or tablet. Organizations in the sector can use the platform to run onboarding and mandatory training for their own staff.

It is a narrower fit outside that world. The catalog is built around humanitarian and development work, so a learner after general academic subjects or technology skills will find little of it relevant, and live teaching is a small part of the offer next to the self-directed courses. Course creators who want to sell their own courses will not find a marketplace here: everything a learner takes on Kaya is free.