The Lebanese Republic: ‘They Would Shake, Sob and Step Back from the Glass Panels’
Mohamad El Dirany, Twenty-Four
I recently began teaching at a school in the Bekaa region when conflict began in September 2024. In a matter of days, an military attack damaged my family home. One minute we were having a meal, the next the structure were falling down around us and onto my automobile outside. It took me three years saving for that Honda Civic, so when I saw it ruined, I became emotional in tears.
My relatives, like many others, were forced to relocate to a more compact living space. The school quickly transitioned classes to virtual sessions to guarantee the displaced could attend. I was instructing a foreign language to pre-teens with about 35 students in each class. Their faces would freeze on the screen, cutting out when the internet was unstable.
Being present was compulsory, but many of the children found it hard to focus. After one particularly heavy airstrike, a guardian activated her pupil’s sound and started speaking angrily at me: “What is the point? They cannot in a state to learn. They must have to rest.” It was impossible I could say to reassure her.
Immediately after the ceasefire was declared, people came back to what was remaining of their dwellings. My family patched our building with temporary materials, trying to keep out the chill, while I started traveling to the institution again. Physical classes restarted, but the mood had altered completely.
Even after the ceasefire, bombings continued to sporadically hit Bekaa, forcing the children to live in a permanent situation of anxiety. Loud disruptions – like a abrupt noise or an item dropping the floor – affected the children. They would shake, cry and move away from the glass, concerned a explosive might fall and damage the glass. When unmanned aircraft flew overhead, they refused to sit near the glass at all.
Drawing houses that had been damaged supported them see that something lost can also be restored
I recall one day, after a vehicle made a loud noise, a boy started crying. He exclaimed at me, “I don’t want to die in this place. I want to die next to my parents.” Another child became emotional when the word “dad” came up in the lesson – he had mourned his father during an airstrike.
During these episodes, I paused French aside to concentrate on their wellbeing. We had no resources for formal training, so I applied my educational background and my own study about psychology.
One task involved the students creating images of the houses that had been destroyed. I then asked them to draw them restored, surrounded with flowers, colour and community. It allowed them see that something lost can also be fixed.
At times I used simple “introductory” questions to help them express themselves. If they were hesitant to speak openly, I created stories and asked my students to finish them, so they could communicate their thoughts through another persona. For the most serious cases, we sought help from a counselor.
When the educational period finished in the summer, many of the children were still deeply impacted. They kept telling me they could not see a life away from the violence, which made them wonder whether learning was important anything at all. Our new school year starts in a couple of weeks, so I have just been wishing that they were able to unwind and find peace during the vacation.
Niger: ‘I Greet Students Who Often Travel for Long Periods … on an Hungry’
Ramatoulaye Anoubacar Maliki, Twenties
Each morning I walk through the weathered gates of the institution, where the resource center, technology lab and science room remain inaccessible for insufficient equipment. Since overseas aid stopped two years ago, my colleagues and I combine money to buy necessary items. In the earth courtyard, where learners gather at early hours every morning, the flag flies at the top of a pole.
Since a coup in mid-2023, this emblem is all that remains of state investment in our academy, where we host nearly a one hundred pupils per session. Some sit multiple to a workspace, while the majority sit on the ground.
At CEG4, pupils come from across the local area. Last year, at the start of the school year, we welcomed more than numerous children evacuated from the neighboring country, fleeing violence. Many have stayed quiet since arriving, traumatised after seeing family members kidnapped and parents executed in frequent attacks. Others, especially young men, were recruited by militants, which grows on lack of education.
Last year, according to reports, nearly 800 schools remained shut in Niger. Some impacted institutions are in regions close to Nigeria, but there are others in certain regions, bordering Mali, where refugees are fleeing the presence of extremists in the east of the country.
Regularly, we try to turn our learning spaces into safe places. We built temporary structures we call “hangars” in the school courtyard to teach the new pupils.
Girls’ dropout rates are alarming, worsened by violence, assault and widespread early marriage.
I wish to assure they are safe at school, that they can educate themselves here without worry – especially the young women. They are the future of our nation
Last year one of my students, a young girl, 13, stopped participating to get married. I went to see her household. With a ill father and a mother feeding her five children by selling street food, the student represents the main source of income for her parents.
I clarified to them the value of learning and the necessity of their daughter’s education for the financial stability of the family.
Some youngsters like her do not even have a roof over them. Many survive by begging with makeshift items before returning to empty buildings.
However, every morning I meet children who sometimes walk for hours, often on an empty stomach, to reach education. Their courage and perseverance give me the will to keep instructing.
It was also what gave me the strength to convince the student’s parents and her husband so that this year, after a year out of school, she came back to class. I saw her joy when she came back, {proud|ple
