End of the 2nd school year

Celebrations and celebrities at the camp school

An intensive year has come to an end. On 10 June 2015, we celebrated the end of the second school year in the informal camp school for Syrian refugees we helped to establish two years ago. This year has seen many changes: thanks to the support of the Malaak Initiative, here in Lebanon, we could help to expand the informal school from three to fourteen class-rooms. More than 400 children from 18 informal camps in the surrounding areas were registered. We had tried again to enroll them into public Lebanese schools but there was no space available. For this reason, our local and international teaching volunteers provided daily education according to the Lebanese curriculum to the kids throughout this school year.

Boys smile while leaning on a desk at the Al-Ihsan camp school, 2015.

Since 2013, we have been running the informal camp school Al-Ihsan on a daily basis.

Children walk along the gravel path between the prefabricated classrooms.

In 2014, thanks to the help of our partners from the Lebanese charity initiative Malaak, the campus of the Al-Ihsan Learning Centre was expanded to 14 class rooms.

Boys smile at their desks, holding plastic bags of clothes.

Every day, more than 250 children have been attending lessons, 5 hours per day. Altogether 440 were enrolled here by June 2015.

A group of boys pose arm in arm in a classroom.

The learning centre is open for Syrian refugee kids, both boys and girls, who were not able to enroll in public schools.

Children sit at desks in a classroom decorated with drawings.

We adopted the Lebanese French curriculum for the daily lessons to give our kids a chance to integrate official Lebanese schools.

A volunteer and a boy pose cheek to cheek in a classroom.

Besides 14 teaching volunteers from Syria and Lebanon, 3 of our international volunteers are giving foreign language course.

A teacher stands at the blackboard in front of a full classroom.

A teacher points to the blackboard while children sit at their desks.

Two women listen to a man speaking in a classroom with shelves of materials.

A white minibus parked on a muddy road beside green fields.

Children with schoolbags get off the white minibus at the camp school.

Children carrying pink boxes leave the school bus by a Malaak and R&R banner.

Two women and a man stand in front of a class of girls at their desks.

A teacher leans over a desk to help girls with their work.

A stack of handwritten worksheets lying on a desk.

Girls in paper crowns sit in a classroom while a girl walks to the front.

A teacher holds papers in front of girls wearing paper crowns.

Girls with braided hair and paper crowns gather in a classroom.

Three girls wearing paper crowns smile at the camera.

A woman holding a small child receives a school report in a classroom.

Boys and girls hold their school reports in a classroom.

Girls in festive costumes and dresses gather for the end-of-year party.

Children wearing helmets and cardboard costumes line up in a classroom.

Children in costumes and helmets parade with balloons in the school yard.

Boys wearing paper crowns stand behind desks and clap.

A volunteer winks at the camera, with children gathered in the school yard behind her.

Three men, two in green T-shirts, walk along a dirt path in an informal camp.

An older man with a white beard in a green T-shirt sits indoors.

Visitors walk along a dirt road between makeshift houses in an informal camp.

A man in a checked shirt talks and gestures with both hands.

A man works on a classroom wall while others watch, beside a painting with the Lebanese cedar.

Guests and children gather under the roof of the school yard.

Visitors talk with children and adults in the open yard of the camp school.

Men greet each other with an embrace at the end-of-year festival.

Visitors sit smiling in the audience among the children at the festival.

Guests and children fill the seats under balloons at the end-of-year festival.

A boy opens his jacket to show a T-shirt reading “Give us peace” in Arabic.

A man in a tie speaks into a microphone in front of a painted backdrop with Arabic slogans.

A man speaks into a microphone to an audience under balloons.

Girls in white and green costumes perform a dance on stage.

Girls with hands on their hearts perform in front of a backdrop reading “It is my right to learn”.

Children raise their certificates above their heads in front of the painted backdrop.

Girls hold their certificates, one wearing a pink mask.

A man hands out certificates as a woman in a headscarf smiles.

A young woman in a headscarf speaks into a microphone next to a man.

Children and teachers holding certificates stand next to a man with a microphone.

Guests eat at long tables in a covered outdoor dining area.

Teachers and guests stand in a row holding up mugs.

Three young people sit side by side, smiling.

A volunteer crouches with children in the school yard.

Girls in shiny masks with paper beaks smile at the camera.

We were very grateful to welcome many of our partners and friends to the big festival concluding the school year in the premises of the camp school. The founder of the Malaak Initiative, Asma Rasamny, was there as well as the founder and director of R&R Syria, Friedrich Bokern. We also welcomed the right hand of the Mufti of Akkar, Sheikh Walid Ismaili and a prominent visitor from Germany: Ruppert Neudeck and his team of the “Green Helmets” stayed at the Peace Centre for a couple of days to explore future forms of cooperation.

But the most important of all were the kids and the local volunteers of the Al-Ihsan Team, led by Sheikh Abdou, who have produced a little miracle during this year: not one single school day had to be cancelled despite the many difficulties we had to face. We would like to thank them and our donors to have made this possible! Our volunteers and our staff members had to make some sacrifices to make this happen. In the end, we were all relieved we made it through the year.

Celebrations and celebrities at the camp school

Your solidarity keeps the classrooms open.