The Lebanese Republic: ‘They Trembled, Cry and Move Away from the Windows’
Mohamad El Dirany, In His Mid-Twenties
I recently began educating at a learning center in the valley area when hostilities erupted in late 2024. Within days, an airstrike tore through my residence. At one moment we were eating lunch, the next the structure were crumbling around us and on top of my automobile outside. It took me a long time budgeting for that personal vehicle, so when I saw it ruined, I became emotional in tears.
My family, like many others, were obliged to move to a reduced accommodation. The school quickly moved classes online to ensure the displaced could participate. I was teaching a foreign language to pre-teens with about a classroom full in each group. Their expressions would appear intermittently on the screen, disconnecting when the signal was unstable.
Attendance was compulsory, but many of the students found it difficult to focus. After one especially intense bombing, a parent unmuted her child’s microphone and started speaking angrily at me: “What is the point? They are not in a frame of mind to learn. They need to rest.” I had no words I could say to comfort her.
Once the truce was reported, people returned to what was still standing of their dwellings. My family covered our walls with makeshift covers, trying to keep out the cold, while I started traveling to the institution again. In-person classes restarted, but the mood had shifted completely.
Even after the pause, attacks continued to occasionally target Bekaa, forcing the youngsters to live in a constant state of fear. Sudden noises – like a abrupt noise or an something hitting the floor – affected the children. They would shake, become tearful and retreat from the windows, fearful a projectile might fall and damage the glass. When drones flew overhead, they refused to sit near the windows at all.
Drawing homes that had been damaged assisted them see that something damaged can also be rebuilt
I remember one day, after a motorcycle backfired, a student started weeping. He screamed at me, “I cannot bear to die in this place. I need to die next to my parents.” Another child burst into tears when the word “father” came up in the lesson – he had mourned his parent during an airstrike.
At such times, I paused academics aside to address their wellbeing. We had no resources for professional development, so I adapted my professional knowledge and my own research about emotional support.
One activity involved the students creating images of the houses that had been destroyed. I then asked them to depict them restored, surrounded with flowers, beauty and family. It encouraged them see that something gone can also be repaired.
Sometimes I used simple “introductory” questions to help them share. If they were not ready to speak freely, I created stories and asked my students to conclude them, so they could communicate their thoughts through another persona. For the most challenging cases, we worked with a school psychologist.
When the educational period ended in the summer, many of the children were still affected. They kept expressing to me they could not see a future away from the conflict, which made them wonder whether schooling was worth anything at all. Our next academic session begins in a couple of weeks, so I have just been hoping that they were able to relax and find peace during the summer break.
Niger: ‘I Encounter Children Who Often Travel for Hours … on an Empty Stomach’
An Educator, 20s
Daily I walk through the weathered gates of the academy, where the book room, technology lab and laboratory remain closed for insufficient equipment. Since overseas aid stopped a while back, my staff and I pool money to buy necessary items. In the dusty courtyard, where students gather at 8am every morning, the national symbol flies at the top of a structure.
Since a political takeover in July 2023, this flag is all that remains of public support in our institution, where we host nearly a one hundred pupils per session. Some sit four or five to a workspace, while the majority sit on the floor.
At the secondary school, pupils come from across the local area. Last year, at the start of the educational period, we welcomed more than 400 children relocated from a nearby nation, fleeing conflict. Many have stayed quiet since arriving, deeply disturbed after seeing relatives abducted and caregivers harmed in ongoing attacks. Others, especially young men, were pressured by extremists, which thrives on illiteracy.
Last year, according to reports, nearly eight hundred schools remained non-operational in Niger. Some concerned institutions are in regions close to neighboring areas, but there are others in local provinces, bordering Mali, where evacuees are fleeing the spread of militants in the east of the country.
Every day, we try to turn our educational environments into protected areas. We built makeshift shelters we call “hangars” in the school courtyard to teach the incoming students.
Girls’ dropout rates are alarming, worsened by violence, rape and widespread child marriage.
I want to say they are secure at this institution, that they can learn here without worry – especially the female students. They are the tomorrow of our country
Last year one of my students, a young girl, 13, stopped attending school to get married. I went to see her household. With a ill father and a mother caring for her multiple dependents by selling street food, she represents the main source of income for her parents.
I clarified to them the role of school and the significance of their daughter’s schooling for the prosperity of the family.
Additional students like her do not even have a home over them. Many get by by soliciting with makeshift items before returning to abandoned houses.
Nevertheless, every morning I meet children who sometimes walk for extended time, often on an hungry, to reach school. Their determination and resilience give me the motivation to keep instructing.
It was also what gave me the confidence to convince Barkatou’s parents and her spouse so that this year, after a year out of school, she came back to class. I saw her happiness when she came back, {proud|ple
