A year-long programme to guarantee psychosocial support to 10,800 Iraqi children. A year of work in 25 schools in Mosul and tother recently-liberated areas.

As military manoeuvres to liberate Mosul draw to an end, the “Ahlein” (Welcome) programme is starting up. This 12-month programme, thanks to support from UNICEF, will focus on 25 schools in Eastern Mosul, Tel Kaif and Bashiqa, and the refugee camps where thousands of Iraqi IDPs are still living.

The goal is to reach 10,800 children between the ages of 5 and 17, through a programme designed to ensure they have psychosocial assistance to mitigate the effects of trauma, by playing games, the creation of resilience groups and special initiatives, including specialised training for more than 200 teachers.

The project’s long-term goal is to train the teaching staff with the know-how and skills necessary to provide psychosocial assistance to children in conflict zones in the future and to be able to identify children in need of expert help.

The programme will focus on 10 primary and secondary schools in Mosul (Eastern area) and in 15 other schools in the Tel Kaif and Bashiqa districts, where we were working to rebuild and improve safety even before the 2014 emergency.

There will also be initiatives in refugee camps and areas with the highest numbers of IDPs from Mosul, Bajed Kandala, Shariya, Shekhan, Mam Rashan, Essian and Nargazlia.

Psychosocial assistance through resilience groups and therapeutic playing is a long-standing area of work for us in the refugee camps which hosted many Iraqi IDPs following Daesh’s advance in 2014.

We have managed to establish important collaborations with local Government’s departments of mental health, which resulted in the shared elaboration of practices and methods, which have been used to help thousands of Iraqi children and their families.

This new project dedicated to Mosul and the recently liberated areas, more than 16,890 people will receive this vital assistance in this particularly challenging period.

We must mitigate the impact of recent years on the youngest members of the community and help them deal with trauma so they have a healthy childhood. And start looking to the country’s future, by investing in the resilience of the young generation.