Saudi Gazette
Nestling in the lush green agriculture of the Beqaa Valley in Eastern Lebanon, just a few kilometers from the Syrian border in the environs of the town of Sawiri, lies a small remarkably average Middle Eastern village. The unpaved streets are lined with box shaped bakhalas (mini supermarkets) and cafés and for much of the day children play in the dust and congregate in groups making their own entertainment.
Sawiri’s economy is agriculture and service-oriented. Most native Lebanese people own their land and come from a farming background.
If it were transported to any other Middle Eastern country it would be seen as a rural community peopled with a thriving and healthy population. In fact, it is all of that on the surface.
The camps are home to hundreds of refugees, largely from Syria, who are heavily dependent on the unfailing hospitality of their Lebanese hosts. Whole generations have grown up here. It is in effect a town but a town without a purpose other than to allow its occupants to exist safely and in relative comfort.
It is not however a place without hope.
Never is that more true than for those living in the many refugee camps in the Beqaa Valley. Men, women and children who have had to leave everything behind in Syria and tried to start a new life for themselves in a foreign country, under the most trying of circumstances.
There is however at least one-way out to a wider, more fulfilling life: education. If, as Nelson Mandela famously said, “Education is the most important weapon you can use to change the world”, then determination to overcome the obstacles in your way, to succeed when you are expected to fail is the second.
With those ideas as guiding principles, a group of volunteers from the British International School in Riyadh (BISR) this September visited the Beqaa Valley and met many of these families. Being teachers, we were there to assess and experience the educational and schooling. BISR has partnered with The Social Support Charity, based in Lebanon to help provide education support and cooperation with the school in Sawiri.
Headmaster of BISR Chris Mantz said that the idea to develop an exchange project has matured over two years or so.
It had humble beginnings. “At a British Embassy Holiday Bazaar – there was a stall raising money for the Syrian refugee camps,” Mantz said. That was perhaps when the seeds were sown. Mrs. Collis, the ambassador’s wife and Salwa Jabri were involved with that. That was my first interaction with Salwa – we started talking.” Mantz developed it further with a meeting at the school and the school’s Charity Committee and staff and it mushroomed from there.
The partnership steadily grew, but has seen exceptional growth since late August 2017. Over the last year BISR has had several fundraising and resource gathering drives to help the families in Sawiri.
It has not all been plain sailing. Mantz said that the most difficult part was determining exactly how BISR would structure the partnership. “I think in the early stages we were too ambitious. We had ideas of community, family and student fundraising. The challenge was finding out exactly what the school wanted and making it real to our students.
“More recently there have been challenges in logistics, actually moving stuff and developing the partnership, “but I think that’s down to human contact,” said Mantz.
December 2016 BISR students donated dozens of hats and scarves to help with protection against the cold weather. The school community has donated hundreds of books, textbooks, writing equipment and many other items for the school, to help the children with their education.
Augmenting the gifts, money raised by the students and community through many fundraisers has provided the school with 14 brand new whiteboards.
The school that BISR is supporting is privately owned that is used for both Lebanese students, and the education of Syrian Refugees. The school day is split into two; in the morning the Lebanese students have their normal school day. In the afternoon the refugee students, and their teachers take over the school, with the support of the headmaster, owner and his wife. They work hard, long days to ensure that the education that is provided is the best it can be
While there is schooling for the children in Lebanon at the schools supported by The Social Support Charity, many of the older children have to return to Syria to take their exams as they cannot be taken in Lebanon.
This is a dangerous and difficult time where the children, and they are still children, risk their safety to take these exams. In our visit, we met one girl who had travelled back and forth eight times to take her exams. The long and difficult journey coupled with lengthy exams took its toll, but she laughed about it and smiled proudly when she told us she had scored over 80 percent in all her exams. This was a determined young lady.
We met perhaps a dozen or more students on our visit, and they all shared the same determination to succeed. Many wanted to become doctors, to help those where they can. The families we met all welcomed us into their homes with open arms and, as is the way of the Arabic culture, were generous with coffee and sweets. Despite everything that they have been through they have not lost the traditional sense of hospitality and wanted to share what they could with us. It was though hard to shake the feeling of taking away from those whose need was far greater than ours.
These families were lucky in some respects as they had managed to build lives for themselves and were able to rent small unfurnished apartments. They have access to clean water and facilities for washing and cleaning clothes. They have a small but decent kitchen and most have Internet. Some have smart phones that they have worked hard and saved for. And happily for most of them their whole family was together.
The teacher we met was less lucky. She lived with her three children in one of the refugee camps. She works hard to support her family and keep her children fed. Her husband had been killed in Syria and she was struggling. She did however take time to speak to us to share her story and offer us coffee, which we felt we simply could not accept.
In the same camp we met another mother who told us that one of the biggest problems is the children have nothing to do, they need to be able to play.
Play, as any teacher will tell you is a vital part of education and the socialization of a child. In the streets ‘play’ sometimes manifested itself as strutting with guns, real ones, a forbidding portent of the future.
There has been no other contribution. Everything raised has come from within the school community – no uniform days, pizza days, selling tee-shirts, wrist bands and of course we have forthcoming marathon sponsorship.
Nothing comes into the fund other than from parents and students.
Mantz observed that there had been no other contribution to the project outside BISR’s internal effort. Everything raised has come from within the school community –uniform days, pizza days, selling tee-shirts, wrist bands and of course we have forthcoming marathon sponsorship. Nothing comes into the fund other than from parents and students.”
Arguments, loud and long, are commonplace in the camps as there is a lot of stress and no release. The physical safety and welfare of the refugee population is catered for, but without a real hope for a better more stimulating life and hope for a life in a world of opportunities.
The most important challenge we have now, opined Mantz was to raise awareness.
“The more we raise awareness – because we have got boys and girls here for a limited amount of time – if we can raise awareness in their minds – then instead of making a contribution for the two, three or four years they are at our school, then maybe they will support for a lifetime; not necessarily this school, but refugee schools and communities generally.”
If education is the most important weapon you can use to change the world, then there is hope and finally perhaps in the Sawiri camp, a generation of children will actually be enabled to change the world.
