Guaranteeing an educational pathway and psycho-social support to those who have remained outside formal educational structures because they have fled the war and are now refugees. This is the objective of the 'Learning4Life' project, active in Jordan and aimed at the youngest members of the Syrian community.
To leave their country at war, to flee to a safer place, to find shelter in Jordan, to start living as refugeesÉ™. This is the fate of thousands of Syrian families, who five years after the outbreak of the Syrian conflict are trying to survive as best they can in sometimes very difficult situations. Being a refugee often also means that children remain outside the school circuit, sometimes interrupting their studies forever, exposed to the risk of recruitment for child labour. This is why it is necessary to provide facilities that can guarantee formal and parallel education, to imagine schools where space is lacking, to organise play and recreational activities that are also supportive and helpful in overcoming the traumas of war.
It is in response to this need and in an attempt to fill these gaps that our 'Learning4Life' programme was conceived: dedicated to Syrian refugees in Jordan, with a special focus on children and teenagers and supported by OCHA.
The aim is to create educational spaces to provide educational, cognitive, social and emotional support to young victims of the Syrian crisis, increasing their opportunities to access education.
The project involves training 28 teachers and educators to provide psycho-social support to children and young people, as well as distributing school materials and organising classes, collective learning moments and recreational activities to minimise the risk of dropping out of school and provide young people with the tools to freely build their future.
In parallel, over 200 families will participate in a series of awareness-raising meetings on child protection and violence prevention.
5,000 children affected by the Syrian crisis will have access to reliable educational facilities and school materials; 1,600 adolescents will take part in intensive education programmes through the two informal school centres located in Irbid and Ramtha where we will operate; an equal number will take part in psycho-social support recreational activities.
The first step towards regaining a future that the war has denied is to return to education, to be able to complete one's schooling, to start living a normal life again. After years of working alongside people who have fled Syria to neighbouring countries, this new project in Jordan is aimed at the part of the population that pays the price of this conflict most of all: children, who have the right to write their own future.
