Caritas Jordan: child refugees need schools

Vatican Radio journalist Tracey McClure recently visited Caritas projects to help refugees in Jordan. Dana Shahin, communications officer with Caritas Jordan told her how education for the tens of thousands of refugee children at great risk.

Earlier this year, Caritas Jordan received the approval of the Jordanian government to receive Iraqi Christian refugees fleeing persecution by Islamic extremists in Mosul and the Ninevah Plains.  They have partnered with Christian churches across Jordan to provide them with shelter, converting parish halls and activity centres into makeshift lodgings.   For those refugees who have found lodgings to rent but have difficulty meeting their bills, Caritas helps them pay the monthly fee. Caritas Jordan provides these refugees “with the means to continue living,” Shahin explains.

Jordan Education

Caritas Jordan education program for refugees in Zarqa. Photo by Val Morgan/SCIAF

However, the number of Christian refugees from Iraq has now reached more than 5,000, with reports of some 100-120 new arrivals in Jordan every day, making it difficult for Caritas to sustain its relief efforts. Of particular concern to Shahin and to Caritas Jordan is the large number of children that comprise the population of refugees. “To this date around 750 kids aged between 5-18 [are in Caritas refugee centres]… and don’t go to school,” Shahin points out.

Catholic schools open to refugees

Parochial schools are among the many institutions in Jordan that have made room for Iraqi and Syrian children to enrol.  At the Latin school in the northern town of Zarqa, teachers remain after the Jordanian kids go home, and teach refugee children in the afternoons.  Caritas helps pay their afternoon salaries.

But with the increasing number of children, schools are running out of space and lack the funding to continue to accommodate more.

Caritas Jordan and the Ministry of Education have met to address the problem and are working on strategies to permit greater access to education for the children of refugees. It is important, Shahin says, “to provide these kids with education as soon as possible.”

She urges the international community to contribute in whatever possible way they can…in order to protect the future, particularly of the kids of the refugees…We do not want these children to become a generation lost to war and indifference.”

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