Supporting children's education in Iraq
We’re helping to rebuild schools in southern Iraq and getting children
enrolled into them.
The TV cameras may have left Iraq when the troops did, but the country is still in an economic and social mess. We’re in the south of the country – in an area where many people had to flee their homes after the war and subsequent sectarian violence that followed it.
Unemployment remains extremely high and school enrolment rates are dropping because boys are often sent to the streets to work. Girls are kept at home until they can be married (at 13 or 14). There’s an acute shortage of teachers and many schools were damaged in the war or have fallen into disrepair.
Iraq is probably the most dangerous and insecure country we’re working in. Kidnappings, car bombs and assassinations are still part of daily life and many groups there are suspicious of, and hostile to, people seen to be representing the ‘West’. That’s why we rely heavily on our local staff and building strong links with the communities we’re working with.
What we're doing
Rehabilitating schools
The local schools are in a terrible state of disrepair. Many of the classrooms don’t have windows and doors, and the lack of adequate toilets keeps many girls away from school altogether. We’ve created a safe-learning space for over 4,000 children and the school attendance rate has increased by 11% where we’ve rehabilitated the schools.
We are training local people to do the rebuilding – so they learn useful vocational skills and they earn the money that can send their kids to the schools rather than onto the streets to work.
Legal Aid
We’re helping children acquire the necessary documentation they need in order to go to school and access the services that can support them. For instance we’re helping parents get the birth certificates for their children – these are often required to enrol a child into school.
Educating isolated children
In Iraq the journey to school can be very unsafe, the schools often lack girls’ toilets, or taps for safe drinking water, and some parents don’t want their girls to go. These are some of the key problems stopping children attending school.
War Child sends teachers to villages so that more isolated children, most often girls, can access at least a basic form of education. Some of them have never held a pen before and once they’ve completed the literacy and life-skills course, some will go on to attend mainstream school.
It costs just £12 to pay for the tools a father needs to set himself up as a local tradesmen. We identified 120 fathers of the most vulnerable and poorest children and taught them how to repair the local schools.
