Child Refugees of Syria

Over the last two weeks we have been running assemblies and tutor time activities to raise awareness of the thousands of children how have become refugees as a result of the conflict. There is hardly a day that goes by that the Syrian conflict doesn't reach headline news across the world. It is so important that we do not forget about the thousands of children who have been affected and as a result are missing out on their education.

We delivered with the help of our global campaigns team assemblies to most year groups telling them of the children who are all too often forgotten about! 

We told a story of Israa, a 13-year-old from Syria. Israa and her family were forced to flee Syria after civil war broke out in March 2011 and it became too dangerous for them to stay. The photo shows her in her old home.  They now live in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan.

She says,

“Before the war started we spent our time playing outside the house but after it started we had to stay in all the time. We missed a lot of school —sometimes we only went once per week.”

“Bombs fell next to my house. We heard they were raiding our village,  and that if they found people hiding they would kill them. The electricity was cut off; we only had 15-30 minutes every three days.”

“We couldn't bring anything with us to the refugee camp. We brought nothing but one change of clothes and one pair of shoes each. We left everything else behind and my mum’s told me that now everything’s gone - it’s been destroyed.”

“If we return to Syria, we will live in a tent while we rebuild our house. We lost our house but we have our lives.” 

Since 2011, 1.9 million Syrian children in years 1-9 have lost their schooling with 3,000 schools damaged or destroyed. Over 1 million children are now refugees of Syria.  Over 3 million children are still living in Syria in dire situations. These are only a few of the shocking statistics!

All students watched a short film:

http://www.aworldatschool.org/news/entry/race-to-help-300000-syrian-girls-and-boys

This talks about the ‘Education without boarder’ plan to give 300,000 child refugees of Syria education in the countries they have fled to.

Students really engaged within the activities. In tutor groups they were ask to think about the rights of children in Syria and whether they are being met or not.

I feel the activities and assemblies have once again reminded everyone in the school of how lucky we are to live in England and the importance of providing support and education to all children regardless of their situation.