A Bombed School Becomes a Source of Education for Many Children in a War-Ravaged Yemen

 


Yemen a country that has been at war since 2015 and is known to be the country with the worst humanitarian crisis, sees a ray of hope for education in the form of a bombed school near Taiz.

 

Al-Wehdah, Its Catastrophic Past and Hopeful Present

Al-Wehdah a school near Taiz was ruined by an air attack in 2016 as a result of the ongoing war between the Houthi’s and the government. The school since then has been sitting in ruins, with shattered doors, windows and collapsing walls, empty and cold, with no teachers and students.

Today the school that was bombed and ruined has become a ray of hope for the young minds as they return to the same school to begin their first day of the new academic year.

The school has no infrastructural facilities, only crippling walls and a weak structure of the school that could collapse at any given point. In spite of the poor state of the school, it doesn’t stop the teachers and students from conducting and attending classes.

 

Make-Do Classrooms and Pupil’s Determination

The teachers and students gather in a make-do classroom to attend their lessons and students use their old exercise books to make notes on the lessons being taught in class while sitting on the floor.

Apart from the school’s devastated state, there are warning red letters painted on one of the crippling walls of the school that says “Beware of Mines”. A parent of one of the students named Ali Sultan has specifically pointed out to the sign in an interview with the AFP news agency.

The school is not only at risk with its crippling walls but also due to its location i.e between a mine-field. The minefield was cleared partially for the students to return.

Sultan said that Yemen has been going through a very difficult time and that they had to choose between two difficult choices i:e either keep the children at home and compromise with their education or send them to study in ruins. They chose the latter.

In spite of all the things that could go wrong while conducting classes in a structure that could collapse at any given point of time, the dedication of teachers who were willing to take risks to teach and the students eagerness to learn in such a situation must be appreciated.

Receiving education in rubbles and at the expense of their lives is a luxury for children in Yemen because 2 million children in Yemen don’t have the privilege to go to school due to the country’s war-torn state.

 

Yemen’s Crippling Education System

In Yemen Crisis, 2 million children out of 7 million are deprived of education due to many factors, according to the UN report. A fourth of those kids are forced to drop out of schools due to the worsening state of war since 2015.

Due to the Yemen crisis, schools more than 2500 are shut down. About two-third schools have been damaged due to the war attacks. The remaining schools have been either shut down due to limited recourses or used by the army as shelters for those who have lost their homes due to the war.

According to a UNICEF report in 2019, 3.6 million more children could be deprived of education as the salaries of teachers teaching in those schools have not been paid for 2 whole years as a result of the Yemen crisis.

The city of Taiz is the third biggest city of Yemen and is heavily destroyed by war. The provincial director of education in Yemen, Abdel Wassae Chaddad said that in Taiz about 47 schools were completely destroyed due to the war.

Chaddad said that he had to close all the schools that were attacked in the war as they were in a very bad state, that they couldn’t be used any longer.

He was also forced to tell the students that attended those schools, to attend other schools that were in the state to accommodate them.

Due to the Yemen crisis the schools that could accommodate these children are located in different vicinities and some children have to walk miles to get to those schools.

 

A War-Ravaged Yemen

Yemen is at war with the Houthi Rebels (they are linked to Iran) for almost 5 years. In these 5 years, more than 10,000 people are killed and almost 24 million are on the verge of starvation and need immediate health assistance. About 3.3 million people have lost their homes.

Late 2014 the Houthi Rebels captured the capital of Yemen, Sanaa and the majority of Yemen’s north region. This move provoked Saudi Arabia to launch a military offense in the already vulnerable country at the expense of 10,000 lives.

 

A Teacher’s Hope to Save the Generation

Jamila al-Wafi a teacher teaching in Al-Wehdah, writes her days lessons on a supporting beam with pencil, which is then taken down by her students in their old exercise books while sitting on the floor.

Once they are done for the day the teachers and the students use the collapsed roof as a staircase to get down to the ground floor and then make their way home.

Al-Wafi says that they have about 500 students who seek education in the destroyed school and that she calls upon the entire world to help and save the school as it could collapse any moment.

She says that the students and teachers at Al-Wehdah have very limited alternatives and sources. Despite the great danger they are subjecting themselves to, they will still work hard to save Yemen from losing a generation of students who couldn’t receive education. (Reported by Aljazeera).

With the teachers and students dedication and determination to save the future of Yemen from being lost, we can only hope that their hope and visions come to life and the country stabilizes for good.

 

Written by - Lirica Machado

Edited by – Adrija Saha