Hopes of a generation and region at stake

As war stops 13m children going to school in Middle East, North Africa

What hope is there for the Middle East and North Africa, where violence continues unabated and 13 million children, the next generation, are out of school? Who will be the future leaders, doctors, nurses, engineers, writers, scientists, poets, teachers, artists...?

Surging conflict and political upheaval across the Middle East and North Africa are preventing more than 13 million children from going to school, according to a UNICEF report released at the beginning of September. 

The report, “Education Under Fire” focuses on the impact of violence on schoolchildren and education systems in nine countries -- Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and the State of Palestine -- that have been directly or indirectly impacted by violence.

As the violence gripping Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya continues to deepen, and with no end in sight to other, more enduring conflicts in Palestine and Sudan, there is every reason to fear that the huge number of children already out of school across the region will continue to grow.

With more than 13 million children already driven from classrooms because of conflict, it is no exaggeration to say that the educational prospects of a generation of children are in the balance.

The forces that are crushing individual lives and futures are also destroying the prospects for an entire region. Young minds distorted by hatred and fear will need extraordinary support to contribute fully to the development of societies built on social progress, tolerance and prosperity, the report says.

Across the region, children demand -- above all else -- to go back to school. They dream of a better future for themselves and their families, and of the day when they can help rebuild their shattered communities and nations. These are the future teachers, nurses, doctors, architects, musicians, scientists and technicians of countries like Syria, Iraq, the State of Palestine, Sudan, Libya and Yemen, and their future leaders too.

Like children anywhere, they want an opportunity to learn, and acquire the skills they need to fulfill their potential. This constitutes a clear challenge to the international community, host governments, policy makers, and all those who want to see the Middle East and North Africa emerge from its current turmoil.

Attacks on schools and education infrastructure -- sometimes deliberate -- are one key reason why many children do not attend classes, the report writes. In Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya alone, nearly 9,000 schools are out of use because they have been damaged, destroyed, are being used to shelter displaced civilians or have been taken over by parties to the conflict.

Other factors include the fear that drives thousands of teachers to abandon their posts, or keeps parents from sending their children to school because of what might happen to them along the way – or at school itself.

In Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, more than 700,000 Syrian refugee children are unable to attend school because the overburdened national education infrastructure cannot cope with the extra student load.

“The destructive impact of conflict is being felt by children right across the region,” says Peter Salama, Regional Director for UNICEF in the Middle East and North Africa. “It’s not just the physical damage being done to schools, but the despair felt by a generation of schoolchildren who see their hopes and futures shattered.”

"It's no coincidence in that what we see in terms of our TV pictures, the tragic pictures of people crossing on boats to Greece and Italy, very much comes back to the Syrian conflict and (to) the Iraqi conflict to a lesser extent," Salama says.

Countries hosting refugees are struggling to get children into schools because their education systems were never created to absorb such numbers. "Everyone is basically straining at the seams in terms of dealing with this massive crisis, which is not surprising given that it is the biggest population movement since World War Two," he notes.

Children out of school can end up working illegally, often being breadwinners for their family. They are vulnerable to exploitation and can be more easily recruited into armed groups, Salama adds.

UNICEF's research shows children are increasingly becoming combatants from a younger age, he added, while students and teachers have been killed, kidnapped and arrested.

"We're on the verge of losing an entire generation of children in the Middle East and North Africa. We must step up, otherwise it will be irreversible and long-term damage we've collectively inflicted upon the children of this region."

The report highlights a range of initiatives -- including the use of self-learning and expanded learning spaces -- that help children learn even in the most desperate of circumstances. But it says the funding such work receives is not commensurate with the burgeoning needs, despite the fact that children and parents caught up in conflict overwhelmingly identify education as their number one priority.

 In particular, the No Lost Generation Initiative, launched by UNICEF and other partners in 2013 to galvanize more international backing for the education and protection needs of children affected by the Syria crisis deserves more support, the report says.

In addition, the reports calls on the international community, host governments, policy makers, the private sector and other partners to: 

• Reduce the number of children out of school through the expansion of informal education services especially for vulnerable children.
• Provide more support to national education systems in conflict-hit countries and host communities to expand learning spaces, recruit and train teachers and provide learning materials
• In countries affected by the Syria crisis, advocate for the recognition and certification of non-formal Education services.
• Prioritize Funding for Education in conflict-hit countries. Funding and investment in education during emergencies remains low. In 2013, less than 2% of emergency aid globally went to education and learning opportunities. UNICEF is seeking around $300 million to fund its emergency education work in the region in 2015.

The full report can be read here.

Appeal for Protected Zones in Syria

In a letter published in today’s Washington Post, 12 diplomats, former State Department officials, judges, professors, journalists and ambassadors appeal to U.S. President Barack Obama to establish Protected Zones in northern and southern Syria.

But is “a negotiated settlement between [Syrian President Bashar] Assad and the moderate opposition” possible or indeed what the opposition is seeking?

They write:

* * * *

To the President and Leaders of the Senate and House of Representatives:

We urge you to establish Protected Zones in northern and southern Syria that are safe from attacks by the Assad regime and ISIL. Establishing Protected Zones would alleviate the severity of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis by:

• Ending the killing of innocent civilians in these regions;
• Curtailing egregious human rights abuses;
• Enabling humanitarian organizations supported and funded by the Administration and Congress to deliver emergency assistance in safety;
• Allowing refugees to begin returning from neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon;
• Facilitating reconstruction projects in protected towns; and
• Encouraging opposition-led democratic governance to grow deeper roots.

Protected Zones can be integrated with the Administration’s air campaign against ISIL to tip the military balance away from Assad, giving him an incentive to reach a negotiated settlement with the moderate opposition.

Protected Zones should be established in three provinces: Aleppo -- which includes Syria’s largest city of Aleppo -- and Idlib in the north along the Turkish border; and Deraa province bordering Jordan. No U.S. ground forces would be involved. U.S. air power already engaged in the ­fight against ISIL and partnered with Free Syrian Army ground forces would provide necessary security in the Protected Zones.

The goal would be to help create and defend the three designated Protected Zones, not oust the regime by direct U.S. force.

Once established, Protected Zones would provide a secure base for the Free Syrian Army to take the offensive against ISIL while moderate opposition leaders negotiate with Assad on a transitional government.

U.S. leadership to provide air cover for Free Syrian Army defenders of designated Protected Zones could produce a humanitarian breakthrough for large numbers of Syrians, put ISIL on the defensive, and make a negotiated settlement between Assad and the moderate opposition possible.

Ambassador (ret.) Mort Abramowitz

Nina Bang-Jensen

Professor Cherif Bassiouni

Judge (ret.) Thomas Buergenthal

Honorable Lee H. Hamilton

 James Hooper

Robert Kagan

Peter Kovler

Aryeh Neier

Ambassador (ret.) Tom Pickering

Hon. Anne-Marie Slaughter

Dr. Paul R. Williams

Feast of Syria war kids’ stories

Christmas is a few days or hours away, and my thoughts somehow keep going back to the more than 1.1 million Syrian children refugees.

The magic of Christmas lives on in children. But so many will not have the opportunity to enjoy it and will miss out on its boots, branded toys, traditional games, decorations, cards, and more.

That is why I was deeply touched when I came across this piece, posted on December 17, by blogger Maysaloon on the experience with Syrian refugee children and their stories in Reyhanli, a town and district of Hatay Province, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, a stone’s throw away from Syria.

* * * * *

A Story Just for Me

On Sunday I sat down in Hatay airport feeling tired. The weather conditions were abysmal and I wasn't looking forward to the next forty eight hours of travel before I got home. Then I rummaged through my satchel and found a folded piece of paper. A little girl called Rime had given it to me two days earlier, and I had put it in my pocket without reading it. I figured I had the time now, so I took it out and unfolded it carefully.

As I read her neat handwriting, with hearts and little flowers drawn upon it, I felt myself choking up and my face lit up with a bright smile. It was a story about a bee and a sheep and a turtle and how they all decide to go together for a picnic and play beneath a tree in a magical castle and when they were all done they got back home and went to sleep.

This last week I was volunteering with the Karam Foundation to help cheer up Syrian children at the Salam school in Reyhanli. I was running a journal writing workshop and also helping out with a storytelling workshop, and one of the things that I was constantly telling the children was that stories needed a "secret" password before being told, otherwise they wouldn't be nice, like tea that had gone cold.

The children would remind me when I pretended to forget, and they would chant out the words "Kan ya Ma Kan Fi Qadeem al Zaman" -- "It was or it was not, in a time long ago" before each recital.

At the end of every story we would end with the cutesy "Hilweh wala fatfouteh?" (Is it nice or is it not?) phrase. I must have told a thousand stories before the week was through, and the children were mesmerized by each one. It was as if something magical happened when a story was being told, and we were all engaged in something old and familiar.

I told stories of a magical giant who helped a little girl find her way back home, of a hunter who rescued a boy lost in the woods, and of how the boy helped his father reclaim his land from a thief.

There were stories of turtles travelling to the pyramids and of a little beetle that helped people to finally drink from a magical fountain of happiness that was protected by a mean caretaker.

In the diary writing workshops I asked the children to write twenty lines about the worst day in their lives, and another twenty about the best day. Anybody who reached twenty lines for the best day of their lives got to pick a special sticker to keep in their notebooks. It was just a sticker, but when they were finally given the opportunity to pick one their eyes would light up in glee and they wouldn't know which one to pick. They would take what seemed like ages to choose which one they wanted. I don't know how it happened, or when exactly, but I fell in love with each of those children and was able to tell their personalities apart even in the short time we had available.

One seven-year-old girl drew me a pretty picture with patterns and a large heart. Written in the heart were the words, "Baba". The cynic in me would have smirked, but after reading what some of these children had written about their lives, or what they had told me over the past days, I almost cried. How could I possibly be a Baba figure to anybody? But for those short days I was.

I remember one boy who looked just like a writer, whatever that may look like. I saw him pick up his pen and stare at the page as I asked him to write about the worst day of his life. He paused as if to think about it, sighed as if he had pulled it up from deep within himself, and then began writing. He then wrote on and on and on. He also wrote over thirty lines for the happiest day of his life, and so did many other boys and girls.

They all whistled when they heard me ask for a mammoth twenty lines, but when they started, many of them went far beyond that. In fact, I had trouble stopping them writing. Some of them even let me read the entries, on condition that I don't read it aloud to the other children. It was a privilege for me to have looked into their memories. They were all good kids, beautiful kids.

One girl who wore a red scarf and matching woolly cap was a know it all and quickly became my very own teacher's pet. She fussed and tsk'ed when she saw me write the date on the board. She said "Sir, I can tell you don't know Arabic. That's not the way we write the date on the board." Then she got up and wrote it on the whiteboard in her very best handwriting. I asked her what her name was and she told me. I told her that that was the name of somebody very dear to me, to which she straightened up in her seat and replied almost instantly with an answer that was the very best that Syrian polite society had to offer. It was all I could do not to burst out in laughter in front of the class.

The next day I saw her running around madly with paint on her cheeks and fingers as she helped the artists in our groups paint the new mural on the school wall, full of life and mischief.

There were countless children throughout the week. There was the young boy Hassan who wanted me to play with his new ball in the playground on our last day, there was young Aisha who let me sit next to her in a class whilst one of my colleagues taught them about photography. She told me all about her family and of how her father was a vet and of how she loves all kinds of animals except cats. She told me she wasn't afraid when the volunteer dentists pulled out one of her teeth and that she had been brave, and I believe her. In spite of everything they had been through, these children had found a way to remain cheery, alive and curious about life.

I do love them all dearly. But there were also moments of sadness. Like when I met an eleven-year-old boy who didn't know how to read. I have never met someone who can't read, and I stood there stunned for a moment as my mind raced through ways that I could help him in the one hour I was spending in his class. There were none, so I asked him to draw the best and worst days of his life. He drew pictures of the planes that Assad had sent to bomb his village.

One boy told me how he had locked himself in his room for three days when his cousin was killed as he fought for the Free Syrian Army -- I asked him to write about that.

Another boy told me his father had been killed, and that that day was the saddest day in his life -- he went on to write about that too.

One girl spoke of how her brother had been captured by the regime, and of what they had done to him.

Everybody had a story to tell me.

And in spite of that they all retained the greatest of warmth and hospitality. They constantly offered me sweets and biscuits after our classes.

For one boy, the best day in his life was when his friends came to visit him on the Eid and his mother had cooked his favorite dishes. They then had tea and he was given 100 liras to go and buy chocolates and biscuits from his uncle's corner shop. I told him to write that down too and he got one of the stickers for his efforts.

So much more was seen and done in this week, of which I will be writing, but as I sat there in that busy airport with the world walking by, I thought of a pretty little girl with a pink woolly cap who had gone home after my storytelling workshop to write me a story in her best handwriting albeit with spelling and grammar mistakes.

She even remembered the magic words and when I reached the end of the story she asked me "Hilwe wala fatfouteh?"

I paused for a moment and mouthed my reply back to her silently.

The Syrian guests in a Turkish shed

Um Maher (left) and Mariam

It is always a difficult choice in times of war: stay and die or flee and become a refugee – at times for life.

The revolution in Syria, now into its third year, has uprooted up to 1.5 million people and internally displaced another four million, making Syrians one of the largest urban-refugee populations in the world.

Mariam made this hard choice.

After losing her husband in the fighting, she was forced to flee, with her eight children in tow, the ceaseless government airstrikes on the Idlib area in northwestern Syria where they lived.

The nine crossed into Turkey on foot and had the good fortune of knocking at the door of a humble farmhouse sitting right on the Syrian-Turkish border.

Um Maher, the Turkish woman farm owner, took pity on them and offered them to stay in the only portion of space available in her livestock shed. 

Alarabiya TV presenter and journalist Rima Maktabi unearthed the tiny farmhouse for a human-interest feature and an on camera chat with Syrian refugee Mariam and her Turkish benefactor Um Maher.

The chicken, the cow, the shed and Rima Maktabi chatting to Um Maher and Mariam

A three-minute video aired this week by Alarabiya TV shows Maktabi, a Lebanese media figure recognized for her coverage of the 2006 Lebanon war, visiting the tiny farmhouse. She gives the livestock shed the once-over, focusing on the section where the woman refugee from Idlib and her brood sleep, cook, eat, wash and bathe, before conversing with Mariam and her eldest son Khaled and with Um Maher.

“We fled the airstrikes. We had no place to hide. We just left carrying nothing,” says Mariam.

“Who helps you now?” Maktabi wonders.

Mariam breaks into tears

“Here? Charitable people,” Mariam replies while her children jump all over her before she breaks into tears.

“When they give us something, we eat. Otherwise we don’t. God looks after us. What can we do?”

Though a shed, they have a “roof” over their head thanks to the big-hearted Um Maher, a Turk who speaks broken Arabic.

Maktabi asks Um Maher if she charges Mariam any rent.

“No, no. Look, they have nothing. How could I charge them rent?” she replies raising her hands and pointing at Mariam and her children. “They’re hungry, God help them! Are we expected to take their soul? They’re hungry. Look, they are all young…”

Um Maher’s shed, cow and chickens are all she owns.

Mariam's eldest son Khaled tends to the cow

Mariam’s eldest son, Khaled, tends the cow and chickens with his sister in way of repaying Um Maher.

“They feed us and we feed them,” he says, adding: “But I miss my country, my home, my school, my relatives and my people.”

Mariam baking bread

Only when do-gooders bring her flour is Mariam able to bake bread in a primitive outdoors mud wood-burning oven.

Um Maher’s welcome to Mariam’s refugee family is all the more touching because she is sharing the little she owns.

Her kindness and generosity is also a testimony to how little help can save lives.

The following is Rima Maktabi's full report on Alarabiya:

Armenian Genocide: Lest we forget

Poster by Naeema Zarif

Ninety-seven years since, the Armenian Genocide is still a topic that hits a raw nerve with Armenians worldwide.

Today, April 24, commemorates the Armenian Genocide committed in 1915-1916 by the Ottoman Empire’s “Young Turk” government.

Roughly half the Ottoman Empire’s 2,500,000 Armenians were killed during the Armenian Genocide through wholesale massacres and deportations by dint of forced marches.

Armenians around the globe commemorate the tragedy on April 24, the day in 1915 when 250-300 Armenian leaders, writers, thinkers and professionals in Constantinople -- present-day Istanbul -- were rounded up, deported and killed. The Ottoman military at that time uprooted Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, without food or water, to the desert of what is now Syria.

Since then, the pomegranate was adopted as a symbol for Armenians. The narrative is that during the 1915 Genocide and exodus, pomegranate was the only food mothers could find to feed their offspring. Those marching could also count the days with the pomegranate seeds. It is that each fruit, however big or small, holds 365 seeds!

As I did last year, I asked two Armenian friends -- Shant Demirdjian and Sareen Akharjalian, who both live in Beirut, Lebanon -- to contribute their thoughts on the day for Mich Café:

Which Genocide?

By Shant Demirdjian*

Let me be a bit more precise, which Armenian Genocide? No, no… It’s not just one; it’s not two or even three or four!! Which one should I talk about?

Murdering an Armenian journalist who dares to be “Armenian”?

Or should I write about the uprooting of more than two million Armenians from their homeland and the massacre of some 1.5 million in the deserts of Syria?

Need I dwell on disallowing the placement of the Holy Cross on a “restored” Armenian church in Van? Or even worse, turning churches into caves, restaurants and farms?

Or what about the vandalism of Armenian architecture -- churches, tombstones, Khatchkars (cross stone) -- over and over again, everywhere in Occupied Armenia, Nakhchivan and in all places “their” hand could reach?

[The Armenian Khatchar cross, often made in obsidian, has two triple loops on each arm of the cross. It rarely has a crucifix but rather a rosette or a solar disc below it and the remainder is filled with patterns of leaves, grapes, pomegranates or abstracts. UNESCO last year declared the Armenian Khatchkar an intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding.]

Which Genocide?

When people talk about the Armenian Genocide they usually consider the latter, the one that started on the night of April 24, 1915, with the capture, murder and deportation of the Armenian elite -- teachers, writers, revolutionaries, who where the first to “go.” The strategy was to make the Armenians “headless.”

But it didn’t stop there. It didn’t stop even after the vast majority of Armenians were moved from their homeland and driven to the deserts of Syria… just to let them perish there from hunger, starvation and Ottoman brutality.

The sad thing is that the outrage hasn’t stopped! The assassination of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and not allowing a cross to be erected on an Armenian Church… only happened a few years ago.

The destruction of the Armenian Heritage is still continuing as you read this! For me, this is the “Armenian Genocide.”

Nonetheless, we survived. We survived and doomed that brutal appetite of mass murder.

We survived and made others talk about the “Armenian Genocide” in Turkey.

We survived and spread our Heritage around the globe.

We survived and turned April 24 into the Day of Survival.

*Shant Demirdjian (@ShantDotMe) is a web developer and teacher. He is a photographer in his spare time and his work can be viewed at his blog, Shant.me – My Photo Blog.

Struggles and Triumphs

By Sareen Akharjalian*

When people ask me about the Armenian Genocide and what I know about it, I don't usually talk about the massacres of entire Armenian villages.

I don't usually talk about the starvation, the rape and the murder Armenians had to face when forcibly evicted and marched into the harsh deserts of Syria.

I don't talk about the massacres and brutal killings of prominent Armenian figures on April 24, 1915.

I tell the story of my grandfather, Arsen Akharjalian. 

My grandfather, God rest his soul, grew up in a village called Yozgat in Turkey. The sad thing is there isn't really much he could tell us about his family in Turkey. You see, his father and uncles were forced into battle and his mother was killed while he was still a very young child -- barely old enough to speak. 

Dédé Arsen

Arsen Akharjalian’s family at the time included 10 brothers and sisters. In the confusion and utter chaos, the family was split up. Some were sent to different parts of Turkey, others, including my grandfather, his sister and older brother were saved by European missionaries and sent to an orphanage in Syria. Their trip to Syria was long and harsh, with no water, no food, and only stories of Armenian killings that had taken place in Deir ez-Zor to go by. It's a wonder they survived. 

They finally reached their destination: an orphanage in Aleppo. But the orphanage was so overcrowded, the children had to be split up once more. His older brother remained in Syria, and my grandfather and his sister were sent to the famous Birds Nest Armenian Orphanage in Jbeil, Lebanon -- which still operates to this day. There, Dédé Arsen learned basic crafts. He became a shoe mender. And by some miracle, he was able to overcome his hideous past and have a family and children.

How do I commemorate the Armenian Genocide?

By remembering my grandfather's immense struggles and triumphs despite these dark times in history. 

*Sareen Akharjalian (@sareen_ak) is a programmer and software developer by day and a cartoonist by night. Her two-year-old webcomic, Ink on the Side, is awaited online every Monday morning to brighten up the week.

Related post:

Armenian Genocide: A tear a day – 24 April 2011