Supporting Education for Children in Syria

You're watching UNICEF Television.

Some things are the same in the world over. Kids wander sleepily to school, a mother
drags her slightly reluctant son along. Students babble excitedly as they line up for
assembly. Similar scenes unfold every morning in schools across Syria if not the world.

But here in the extreme north of the country, education hangs in the balance for many.
The area has been blighted by drought of late, and though the rains have started to come
and renew the pastures, the area remains distinctly impoverished. At some schools,
teachers band together to help students buy uniforms. But there’s only so much a
staffroom can do, sometimes it requires a third party and this is the pledge the UNICEF
and the European Union have committed themselves to, to help the Ministry of Education
to guarantee the right of education for all young students in Syria.

Here in Al Hassakeh, its support has taken the form of supply and rehabilitation. Before
UNICEF and EU intervention, the school was crumbling under the pounding feet of its
students and the desks were literally splintering under the weight of learning. But as the
tardiest come late to school, a new arrival is also turning up, a delivery of specially
crafted desks out of a wide ranging UNICEF and EU project designed to supply,
rehabilitate and support many schools across Syria. UNICEF and EU are working
alongside the Ministry of Education to ensure that kids in Syria have the basics so that
they can continue to be kids, to change their luck during sport, to laugh, to play and most
of all to study and to learn.

This is Rob Sixsmith reporting for UNICEF Television. Unite for Children.